Google Gets Into Business-service Industry
I can’t believe I missed this. Google has just quitely leaked their all-new offerings. This offering (which you can see here) is a brand new service that is tooled for business clients although the name suggest that it’s a universal service, Google Apps for Your domain.
What does this mean? It means that you (in this case, companies) can finally began to unify all of their back-office process. They can use Gmail GUI and system for their emailing needs, their employees can use centralized Google Talk to IM with peers, and the workers can finally come together on a unified system on Google Calendar. This means more streamlined work-condition for any company that uses it.
We can use those services separately you say? Well yes, this service doesn’t add value that much for personal user, but companies today preferred to have a centralized system in which all of their back-office system can be streamlined (and thus easier to manage). Definitely a cost-cutting offering from Google.
To date, there’s only four service available (GTalk, Gmail for domain, Calendar, and Google Page — which I believe doesn’t hold any significance) but they are planning to expand their service to include Google Spreadsheets and also Writely to handle user’s spreadsheet-ing and word processing needs. Clearly indicates that in the near-future, people can share their documents with their co-workers easily because now everything is kept under the same server (as I said, streamlined process)
Sense of defeat in the air you say? I thought so too! This move by Google directly attacks Microsoft’s biggest income base, Windows and Office. With this service fully-launched, company can now use any thin-client available that will cost them nothing (in terms of software) and use Google Apps to organize their workflow using Google tools.
Awesome idea and probably this is the most awaited move by Google after they received many critiques from around the world about how ineffective their integration processes are. Let’s see how Microsoft retaliate with their Live service.
PS: Google’s stock jump more than $4 (more than 1%) — while Microsoft is pretty much stable — on the floor opening today. Great move by Google (although I’m still wondering, how will the price structure be with Google known for giving free service for almost everything).
