Google Apps Not the DC Success Many Believe? 139
theodp writes "Google touts its partnership with the District of Columbia government, presenting it as quite the Google Apps success story. So as part of his coverage of last week's Gmail outage, nextgov's Gautham Nagesh called the DC government, but was told they hadn't heard of any reports of outages among city employees. Nagesh wrote this off to safeguards put in place for the government by Google, but readers tipped him off to another explanation: 'Despite all the press releases trumpeting Google in DC,' an anonymous commenter wrote, 'Exchange is still the city's primary email system.' Nagesh followed up, and was surprised to learn that there is indeed no Gmail in DC government. This all seemed rather strange to Nagesh, considering how much attention former DC CTO and current Federal CIO Vivek Kundra has received for implementing Google Apps for District employees. Reporting separately, CNET's Elinor Mills was told by a DC spokeswoman that while Google Apps is available to 38,000 DC city employees, only 4,000 are actively using it. The spokeswoman added that Gmail could potentially replace Microsoft Exchange, 'but this decision has not been made yet.'"
Re:Apps (Score:5, Insightful)
And how much "corporate control" can you exert over an Android phone? Encryption? They have a central management server you can install?
I really doubt an offering from Google is ready for the government scene. They may be perfect for home consumer markets, which is fine, but not government or 'secure' corporate.
User Inertia (Score:5, Insightful)
I work in government. Not DC.
The problem is user inertia, it always has been, it always will be.
We deployed SharePoint years ago. Did that improve anything? No. User's still send attachments in email, still use network drives for collaboration, and still use spreadsheets to gather data.
The spreadsheet thing is really funny. The boss finally put the spreadsheet up on SharePoint and sent a link to it. But you still see people downloading the spreadsheet from the site, filling out their portion, then uploading it with a new name. Then yelling over the cubicle wall that they are done with their tasking. We've gone through training and tried to get them to do it the more efficient way. Impossible task.
Trying to get users to switch off of software and methods they've used for years is a near impossibility.
Re:User Inertia (Score:3, Insightful)
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Having a theoretically more efficient way to do the job is nice, but having a way that works now is priceless.
You have to show value before people will care about a new technology.
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:FTC should be involved (Score:4, Insightful)
If Google used this 'news' to help their stock prices or increase sales, id call it fraud. And they might too.
1) You're assuming that Google had any idea. They got an agreement from DC that they could use them in advertising (I'm fairly certain, since no one trumpets a customer without such an agreement) that that's it. They don't get to tell DC how to use it.
2) There's nothing false in saying you made a large sale when you did. Your claim of fraud is similar to claiming fraud when Ford touts a giant sale of a fleet of cars to the military when the military is just putting them into bunkers and never driving them.
3) Do you really think an apps sale to DC affected Google's stock price? I dare you to find a blip on their chart.
Don't be a girlie man, flip the switch (Score:5, Insightful)
The spokeswoman added that Gmail could potentially replace Microsoft Exchange, 'but this decision has not been made yet.'"
Quit dorking around the flip the switch already. We did and it was the best move we ever made. It was a little rocky at first, then smooth sailing ever since. We've noticed two outages in the last year, I think there have been three total. Only the recent one generated any calls. Overall that makes it more reliable than Exchange.
Not sure what holds companies back from making the change. I've heard the arguments, they don't hold up to reality. Google doesn't spy on our email and if it's something really sensitive we can add a password to the document or encrypt the content. I've done that exactly once in the last year. Your company email passes unencrypted through dozens of relays, regardless of what email provider you use. Any one of those relays could be copying and storing those messages. So what would make Google any bigger risk than any one of them?
Backups are the other thing I hear about a lot. If it's that important, you can set up Gmail to auto-forward some or all of your messages to another account or you can use any number of tools in Windows, Linux and Mac to keep backups, if you feel the need. So far email backups have been a big waste of time and drive space, but I suppose it's better that small waste than a big loss if something bad did happen.
That change freed up a lot of money. We didn't need an Exchange admin and we saved a bundle on license fees.
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:4, Insightful)
I have to agree. I am generally in favor of free and open source software. But MS exchange and the software ecosystem surrounding it is highly available, reliable, feature rich, painlessly scalable from a small operation up to hundreds of thousands or possibly even millions of users at a price point that almost any business can afford. Its one of microsofts best products, and there really isn't anything I have seen in any competitors that can meet, much less, beat Exchange at its game.
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:4, Insightful)
As an open source evangelist, I also regretfully agree. While there are substitutes for many *parts* of the Exchange ecosystem, there is no other truly integrated system that works as well, is as comprehensive, provides the full gamut of functionality and is as mature and easy to use.
If you want to know how Google Apps as a whole compares to Exchange as a whole, compare the Google Apps spreadsheet application to MS Excel. Sure, it covers the functionality needed by little Johnny figuring out what a spreadsheet is, but the minute you need to do any *real* spreadsheet work, Google Apps just doesn't deliver.
That is true of the whole Google Apps framework. It's great for high school study groups and perhaps even university clubhouses, but when heavy lifting needs to be done, it doesn't cut the mustard. Anyone who thinkos otherwise hasn't spent any/enough time in a real, productive office workplace.
As I said, I regret to have to say this, as I'm a Linux only desktop user, and hate it every time I have to troubleshoot some guy's virus infested workstation. I *wish* open source could deliver, but it just can't - YET. Google Apps, THANK GOD, doesn't deliver. Moving from platform lock in on the desktop to another platform lock in where not only the software that I'm using but also my frakkin' USER DATA is also locked in is literally jumping out of the frying pan and into the fire.
Can the Google fanboys please stop? Can't you idiots see that Google has the makings of an evil monopoly that makes Microsoft look like your friendly local corner store.
Re:User Inertia (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Apps (Score:3, Insightful)
Consider this:
I've seen lots of companies using local authentication for their linux boxes, along with a supposedly secret root password configured in every machine. There are a lot of centralized directory and authentication options for linux. But, how much people use it? But, they do know how to setup Microsoft's Active Directory and setup clients to use it.
Linux has ACLs for some time know, something that is way better than the old permission schemes. But, again, I've never seen it widely deployed across a large network. ACLs are the default file permission scheme on Windows.
No to mention that lots of linux and servers desktop out there are not configured with a password on GRUB to avoid people booting into single mode and getting root credentials.
So, while linux is as corporate-security capable as windows under a administrative point of view, most corporations and system administrations are not aware of that. And even when they are, the tools for managing such things are not as straightforward to use as Active Directory;
Being less sucetible to exploits is not the whole game in security. It doesn't matter what is your operating system, a badly configured operating system is insecure no matter which kernel do you use. And at this point, ease of management becomes very important.
Re:Apps (Score:3, Insightful)
Palm took an android kernel and ran a completely new userland/frontend (WebOS) on top
Do you have any evidence that Palm took the kernel from Android, as opposed to a stock ARM Linux kernel? Actually, reading the rest of your post, do you know what 'kernel' means?
Re:User Inertia (Score:3, Insightful)
I've come to the conclusion that if you want people to change in an organization you have to TAKE AWAY the methods they did it before.
I've come to the conclusion that if you want users to change their methods you have to provide them with a new method that is both learnable and better for them, not just for you. In my experience, sharepoint is generally harder to use than e-mail attachments, makes for a slower workflow, and has a learning curve, especially as it is usually implemented. Seriously, sending an e-mail with an attachment is easier than uploading a file and sending an e-mail with a link to the file. If you want users to have a better method, set up something easier, like a CMS repository that automatically sends an e-mail to the selected users with a short message, using the same interface as the e-mail system.
The problem with migrating users away from e-mail based workflows, is creating workflows that are actually easier for the user than the e-mail based workflow. Mark my words. Provide users with something better and easier, potentially something like Google Wave with an application editing plug-in and (if they do it right) you won't have to force your users to change workflows because they'll be lining up to do it. Users are like a river, following the path of least resistance. Sharepoint is like a pipeline in the river with the IT department as the pump constantly working to try to make users follow a harder workflow.
Re:This is a DC problem, not a Google problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Exchange over Activesync? RPC over HTTPS? Seamless integration with Outlook?
(I know that Zimbra, a groupware product I used for a LONG time, had the basics of the first feature, but lacked everything else.)
GMail completely sucks (Score:0, Insightful)
Compared to Exchange.. Sorry, the UI blows.
Outlook IMAP integration isn't remotely as close to as good as Exchange.
No alias's (no you cannot have bob and sales goto the same inbox).
On Blackberry Storm's link's with query strings don't render correctly in the GMail app.
It is mediocre at best.