Google Apps to Become Paid Service 273
FredDC writes "Business Week reports Google Apps is becoming a paid service soon for companies who wish to use it for their domain. Disney and Pixar are reportedly thinking about switching to Google Apps instead of using Microsoft Office. Could this be the end of a monopoly? Or the start of a new one?"
Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, I've been using Apps for my personal domain for quite a while. It's pretty great for a freebie - just point your mx records at google, create an admin account and google takes care of everything else. Setup catch all accounts, gmail accounts for different users, calender, gtalk, etc are all there.
But I won't continue to use it if it costs anything. Like I said, its great for a freebie.
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Maybe because Microsoft Office won't be a Universal binary until later this year?
Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:5, Informative)
I don't expect people to read the article, but at least read the comment you're replying to.
Google Apps for your domain is not an online office suite, but a gmail, gtalk, gcalender, etc for your domain.
Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
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However, consider the context of my statement: Why is Pixar considering Google Apps? Isn't Apple's
Reading the article, its perfectly clear that Pixar is considering Google's email service:
Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
Pixar and Disney going with Google Apps would have significant implications (all good, I think) for
Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's an exchange killer, not an office killer.
Apple and Google don't compete. Apple has no need to be afraid of Google.
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Google apps... Exchange Killer... Hahahahahahaaaaa!!!! I should save this post so that I can come back in five years and laugh at you again.
Will you have the last laugh? I doubt it. (Score:3, Insightful)
Come back in five years, but don't be so sure you'll be the one laughing.
Back in 2002, five years ago, Google had only been profitable for a couple of years, and was starting to make it into the top-five most visited web sites in some countries. Its non-www-search offerings were in their infancy: it had just acquired Deja News (in 2001), and was starting up Google News around 2002.
Today, www.google.com is the most visited site on the web. GMail is one of the best-known e-mail services in the world -- no
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I wasn't aware that
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Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:5, Informative)
It's actually one of the few things I think must have slipped under Steve's radar - I don't think
Simon.
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Google Apps isn't an application suite either its gmail, gtalk, gcalender, etc for your domain.
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Simon
Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:4, Informative)
I did read the article, I picked up on: ... and sort of expected "office productivity suite" to include word-processing and spreadsheets, since they do *have* those. But you're right in as much as they don't do these *yet*
2) "Install Firefox. It works with more websites than Safari"
I just don't like Firefox - I've never had a great experience with it, and I have no need of google apps, so I'm happy as I am, thanks.
Simon
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Google Inc. (GOOG ) is finally about to take a big leap onto Microsoft's turf. Since last August, the search leader has offered a test version of an online office productivity software suite, called Google Apps for Your Domain,
I think to be honest you should have included the rest of the sentence you quoted. Namely: that lets companies offload e-mail systems to Google while keeping their own e-mail addresses.
The article makes it perfectly clear what Google Apps is.
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It's also a bit of a hassle the FF needs to write into
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If
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Yahoo is offering free push email to ALL iPhone customers--couldn't he have used .mac?
Y'know, I thought that too. But after a while, I had the following revelation:
I receive perhaps 40 or so emails per day through my (relatively spam-free) .mac account. Most of those are from mailing lists I've signed up to. When those mailing lists are busy, I can receive well over a hundred, hundred-and-fifty emails per day there.
I really don't want all those making my phone go 'bing' every five minutes.
Of course, that's not to say that we couldn't have free .mac push email anyway, as an added feature
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Hmmmmmmn, good news if true, but how is google supposed to know whether wmf.com is my personal domain or a company domain?
Re:Pixar's considering Google Apps? (Score:5, Informative)
That statement was pulled out of their asses. The Google Apps page has always said it would be free for beta, and then after beta, new signups will be charged. I know, because the company I work for has made the switch. We were looking for new email hosting at the time anyhow, and that came up as a recommendation. After weighing the alternatives, and treating GMail as if it was costing the same as the others (so as not to give it unfair advantage in our minds, as it has to be GOOD for our company) we still chose GMail.
There has been a few snags. No IMAP, POP3 implementation sucks, SMTP and POP3 both require use of secure ports, no folders (tags instead, useless to a pop3 client), and some (minor, temporary) hassles now and then with adding email lists, names to email lists, new accounts, and setting forwards.
If I had my vote again, I might choose to have the company pay for a managed email solution... But were on it, and weve worked out most of the kinks. And I love GMails interface. Ive given up on Thunderbird and just use the web interface now.
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SMTP and POP3 both require use of secure ports
How is that a bad thing?
no folders (tags instead, useless to a pop3 client)
Wouldn't filing the email in a separate folder on the server mean your POP3 client won't receive a copy? Either way, not having folders on the server doesn't affect your ability to organize into folders locally with your POP3 client.
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Because they require it. If your email client doesnt support that, itd be a major pain.
My company was used to IMAP, where the server kept the folders seperate. Being forced to move to pop, and then the webmail tags not being able to be used to categorize mail... Well, there was grumbling.
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Y'know, five years from now we'll be saying that you can imagine a company doing something that vital itself. It's going to be a bad time to be a sysadmin, believe me.
Dave
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Of course, what happens if google or the service goes away? You lose everything. At least if you're paying for it, they have SOME kind of responsibility to you (the terms of service or contract you sign with them remain to be seen
It actually
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Perhaps because they don't use Apple computers? I don't work there, but I read that their back-end is all renderman on Linux and their artists are mainly using Maya on XP. (to ease the eventual transition to a unified Maya/Max environ perhaps?)
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Where it says: The article is speculative, that's why I said "if google apps costs anything...."
Gamma (Score:5, Funny)
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There's no way that they are seriously considering using the office suite to do anything productive or to replace Microsoft Office (or whatever other suite they use).
Go ahead and open a document and try hitting the insert key on your keyboard. Yeah, it doesn't work.
If *that* doesn't work, I just can't bring myself to move any further into the application to consider it.
So to answer your question, "no, it's not."
Re:Gamma (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.activewin.com/screenshots/officexpkeyb
http://home.uchicago.edu/~iyjung/bigpictures/48.j
That is the way MS is pushing for layouts. Do you notice that the Insert key isn't there? It's now a control key off of some other random key. Which key that is will change between just about every keyboard model.
Sure, we can keep the Caps Lock key in the wrong place, hell, even on dedicated key at all, but we get rid of the Insert key. Go figure.
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C-x / C-c / C-v (Score:3, Informative)
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I haven't asked a computer to spell-check my document in years... The squiggly underlines help me fix spelling as I type.
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price (Score:2)
Yes, Microsoft is the great evil, but they used to be "cool," kind of the way Google is now.
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Source? (Score:4, Informative)
Where do you get that information? It wasn't in the article.
When I signed up for Google Apps for Your Domain a few months ago, they said that they would eventually start charging for new user accounts, but user accounts that already exist will remain free when they transition to a paid service.
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The answer to that question is in your own sig.
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Pivot Tables.
Until something comes along to rival pivot tables, Excel isn't going anywhere.
Let's see... (Score:3, Interesting)
Buying Microsoft Office = expensive.
Using Google Apps = US$ X per year.
Downloading Open Office = free, except for the bandwidth (which you need to connect to Google Apps anyway).
If I was in charge of a small company, I know what that company would use... and what solution would be the best to preserve it from our friends at the SPA.
Re:Let's see... (Score:5, Insightful)
Contrary to the title, it's not MS-Office that google is going after, it is Exchange.
Every Exchange admin I have ever spoken with claims that it is a nightmare to set up and maintain. There is a trend now to outsource that functionality. Google is targeting that market.
Exchange a big obstacle to Linux Adoption (Score:5, Interesting)
Now, if there was only some way Google could wrest control over the games industry from Microsoft and let game developers develop for alternative platforms a bit easier. My gaming habits are the only thing keeping me from leaving XP completely. I am not likely to stop gaming, I can't/won't play consoles, and the future looks pretty MS monopolistic to me unless something changes. I think there are a lot of people like me out there too.
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What, is Google forbidding them from developing for other platforms now? Is that the only thing keeping developers back?
I'd think it would have something to do with MS's OS marketshare, but maybe that's me.
And, of course, by reducing users' dependence on MS Office, this would qualify as something that helps reduce MS domination of the
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The monolithic state of the (PC) gaming industry is not the fault of Microsoft. PC gaming before DirectX was flat-out terrible. Support for OpenGL (or lack thereof) is not the fault of Microsoft either. Fiddling around with drivers in Linux just to play a PC game is not for the vast, vast majority of gamers. Mac users were simply looked over due to lack of marketshare (although that may change with Intel chips being used now).
Hopefully both! (Score:2)
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
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Google (Score:2, Funny)
Google server in a box? (Score:5, Interesting)
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Re:Google server in a box? (Score:5, Insightful)
Guess what: a lot of real companies can't imagine trusting their most important data to only their in-house IT guys. Otherwise there wouldn't be successful companies that handle the outsourcing of hosted apps, backups, e-commerce, and so on. And there are. There are also plenty of companies that thought they had it all under control internally, and totally blew it.
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Uh huh. So people take screenshots with their cellphone. Much as I'd love to see cellphones banned, I'm not optimistic.
If Google or any company promise "full information lock-down" to anybody, they'll be lying. DRM doesn't suddenly become less silly just because it's being applied to text rather than music/video.
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I cant imagine a real company allowing its data to be housed outside its control.
IBM makes several billion dollars per year on "Strategic Outsourcing". That's a fancy name for IBM hosting and operating the clients' data centers. It's particularly popular among big banks, and one of the reasons they like it is that they think IBM can do a better job of securing their data than they can. Also, it's supposed to cost less (not being a CIO myself, or an IBM salesman, I'm somewhat skeptical of both of those benefits, but, hey, would clients be signing $1+B/yr contracts if it weren't true
News for today: Author Spreads Paranoia (Score:2)
Could this be the end of a monopoly? Or the start of a new one?"
It's only a monopoly when there's one ridiculously successful entity (or a group of aligned entities) that holds control over the market. This would only be a monopoly if Microsoft Office crashed and burned. This also completely discounts OpenOffice which has picked up a lot of steam recently. Just because Google has proven the "Do No Evil" catchphrase to be bogus, it doesn't mean that they can create a monopoly out of thin air.
Leads to open formats (Score:5, Insightful)
Since slashdot is now slashvertising (Score:4, Funny)
Can a day go by where google doesn't make frontpage for doing something millions of other companies already do (and are frankly better at)
thanks
Uh oh (Score:5, Interesting)
In some measure, this is already the case - how many people at work haven't searched online for solutions to problems encountered at work. This being one form of online dependence. This is a far cry from depending on an outside server. Think about the exposure to DoS attacks that this makes your company? Corporate war is just around the corner. Get a botnet to bring down your competitor's internet and their entire workforce productivity drops to zero.
Additionally, just wait until some security hole opens up and a lawyer's documents are hacked into because they are being edited online.
This is just a bad, bad idea on its face.
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You're spot on about the Microsoft thing, they've been fantasizing about this for years. Every once in a while they try and drum up support for it, and fail miserably.
My problem isn't about relying on someone else's servers, it's that something seems fundamentally wrong about being drained of money indefinitely. Maybe it's psychological rather than eco
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C'mon, man, upgrade! (Score:2)
My problem isn't about relying on someone else's servers, it's that something seems fundamentally wrong about being drained of money indefinitely. Maybe it's psychological rather than economic, but I'd rather buy something and own it.
Dude, it's time to upgrade your Banyan VINES and Yggdrasil servers!
Tinfoil hat time (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Tinfoil hat time (Score:5, Interesting)
Google's shareholders have virtually no voice in the operation of the company, remember? How can a company be answerable to people that never had a real voice in the company in the first place?
Cautious? Sure. Suspicious? I'm not sure.
Re:Tinfoil hat time (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes. (Then again, I tend to be very cynical about companies in general.)
At what point does a small, presumably non-corporate business become "big" and full of the "temptations of corporate culture"?
Hard to say, but if you can influence back door sessions of state legislatures I think that's a good indication you've crossed the boundary.
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Google's shareholders have virtually no voice in the operation of the company, remember? How can a company be answerable to people that never had a real voice in the company in the first place?
Not answerable per-se, but any company with shareholders (in most countries, including the US) is legally obliged to ensure that it acts in the best interests of the company as a whole and the shareholders in particular. It's not the shareholders they answer to (though the larger ones certainly do have a voice) it's the law.
Re:Tinfoil hat time (Score:4, Insightful)
Not true.
The officers of a corporation *are* legally required to operate the company in accordance with the articles of incorporation that define what the company's goals are. In most cases, a key goal in the articles is to increase shareholder value. But companies can (and are) formed with very different goals in mind. I could start a company whose primary goal is to waste its investors' cash as rapidly as possible while avoiding acquiring any tangible assets (the "Brewster's Millions" goal), and I would then be legally at risk if I were to invest shareholders' money in anything that might return a profit. Of course, it would probably be hard to find investors.
In Google's case, I'm not sure exactly what the articles of incorporation say, but I suspect they contain at least some of the things found in Google's IPO Letter [google.com]. If that's true, then Google's execs do not, in fact, have the same obligation to focus on improving shareholder value that most company's do. Even if it's not in the articles of incorporation, the fact that Google made clear to potential investors that its primary goal is "to develop services that significantly improve the lives of as many people as possible" and that Google's leadership intends to focus on the long term even at the expense of the short term, means that shareholders can't claim that they expected Google to act outside of those parameters.
Working against all that, of course, is the fact that those who are in control at Google are also shareholders and see significant personal financial gain from increased stock price.
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And when I'm not connected? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Same thing you do now. Sync them to your laptop and use whatever apps you would normally. When finished, they get moved back to Google's servers.
Did I miss the point? Why would anything change?
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Locally installed apps still... (Score:3, Insightful)
Later,
-Slashdot Junky
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Hell, even in smaller companies, My Document is quite commonly on a network drive, for backup purposes.
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You SHOULD have an option to force it to only use one particular method, because the above scenario is rare. Oh well >.> Didn't have network issues in ages where I work, so it worked fine for us
No, because of a little thing called legacy data (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, I'm not expecting some nifty migration wizard to automagically convert my existing data to $shinyWebbyOfficeSuite (I've been through enough Novell to Microsoft migrations to know that never works) but I'd like to see one of these would-be Office alternatives make a concerted effort to bring me on board besides marketing and hype.
What, no spelling Nazis? (Score:5, Funny)
Where are the pedants decrying the spelling of the word "innstead"? Shame on you all!
Hang on a second... I think I just poured mockery on myself.Obvious problems... (Score:2, Insightful)
1. The Internet
If for any reason the company loses it's internet access (this NEVER happens) that company has NO access to any of their internal data yet they still have to pay for that non-existant access. One fiber cut or lightning strike can knock out internet access for days for many companies. If they were runn
Since when is Google Apps an office suite? (Score:5, Informative)
A replacement for Outlook and Exchange, maybe. But "Google Apps for Your Domain", the service in question, isn't an office suite.
It is:
It is *NOT* a replacement for Word, Excel, or PowerPoint. That is 'Google Docs & Spreadsheet' (minus the presentation software, which is rumored to be coming soon.)
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Why wouldn't you expect the offerings to be integrated in the near future. It seems impossible to me that they won't do that.
How about 'neither' (Score:3, Insightful)
The professional world in general isnt ready for 3rd party hosting of their daily bread and butter apps, yet. Someday perhaps, but after being stung from the last attempt at a return to the concept of ASPs, not many will step up to the plate again for a while.
google apps at universities (Score:5, Interesting)
http://www.thecrimson.com/article.aspx?ref=516036 [thecrimson.com] has been looking into it and I'd be thrilled if they do use a GMail like interface because the current FAS webmail system is a piece of tripe. (I logged into it once and then went back to SSH and pine - some departments don't even have a webmail interface because the damn thing is so bad).
The added storage space and some savings you'd get from moving to Google Apps is nice but a lot of students (well in Physics,astronomy anyway) still need to be able to SSH in and start a remote X session, which I don't see happening soon, so they are still going to have to spend money on their own servers. As the article points out Google isn't without competition - Windows has Live @edu (run away) and there is
Sarbanes-Oxley implications? (Score:4, Insightful)
Charging for BETA? (Score:2, Interesting)
Pick Your Platform (Score:3, Informative)
OTOH, I'd have to rely on internet access. I couldn't work on my documents in a plane.
Disney, Pixar, you mean Steve Jobs is trying to fu (Score:2, Interesting)
Gist of Article Missed (Score:3, Insightful)
Only thing in this article about paying anything though is that Microsoft has a competing product for $39/mo and that Google employees get "paid massages", maybe whoever wrote the summary was thinking of paid messages or something.
Disney/Pixar aren't *actually* considering Google. (Score:3, Informative)
This is the same thing that happened with Linux in the late 1990's. Companies would leak and/or hint that they were doing a serious evaluation of Linux, and Microsoft would suddenly swoop in with deep discounts. In the end, though, Linux actually did take a chunk of that market away from Microsoft, which is why Microsoft now goes to such great lengths to publish a bunch of lies about TCO.
I think the MS Office alternatives are now where Linux was in the late 1990's -- some serious evaluations, some early adopters, but the big migrations are probably still a few years away.
Google Apps is not going to replace Office (Score:4, Interesting)
1) A web based interface does not stack up to a native gui app.
2) Google Apps are not full featured.
3) Security. Shopping list on google servers - sure, why not.
My personal financial information - not a chance.
Corporate Data - You are kidding me, right?
4) Availability - no internet connection. no Google Apps.
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