Tech Watch | InfoWorld Staff » Google rep glib on enterprise play

September 18, 2007 | Comments: (0)

Google rep glib on enterprise play

TAGS: Web 2.0

Placed before a Web-believin' audience at TechCrunch40 today to present Google's much-anticipated Docs presentation capabilities, Jennifer Mazzon (pictured), product manager of Google Docs, parried questions about Google's ongoing enterprise agenda with a wave of the hand and a series of telling shrugs.

Asked about the security, reliability, and functionality reservations of enterprises considering a SaaS-based productivity app such as Google Apps Premier, Mazzon responded with the very consumer-oriented slant that Google has thus far been hard-pressed to shed in marketing its products to companies.

Concerned about the security of your productivity assets hosted at Google?

"Change your passwords, and make them good," Mazzon said. "Ultimately, your own security is your [own responsibility], just like your stuff on your own computer is one password away."

Wondering why you can't yet shake your Excel addiction in favor of a more beefed-up version of the comparatively lightweight Google Spreadsheets offering?

"In general, we did not design Google Docs for the power user who is very [adept] in spreadsheet usage," Mazzon said.

How about backup reliability?

"Nobody yet has lost their documents," Mazzon quipped.

The key issue here is, of course, a lack of commitment to the kinds of SLAs (service-level agreements) enterprises have come to rely on, if only as a reputable stamp of accountability. And Google appears reluctant to ante up its end of such contractual concerns anytime soon.

"We do have user agreements that people sign and we absolutely feel very strongly that people's assets that they put into Google Docs are precious and theirs and we need to enable them to get to them," she said.

In short, Google will continue to try to do its best.

Or, as we've seen in the recent Capgemini announcement, consultancies will do it for them.

Either way, integrating online tools into a hybrid productivity model will likely prove the not-too-distant enterprise norm, especially as Microsoft continues to lag in providing the kind of lightweight online capabilities many departments are currently seeking from IT.

And, with Yahoo's acquisition of Zimbra yesterday, the competition is certainly heating up.

Asked about the impact the Zimbra acquisition will have on Google's Web app lead, Mazzon was not unsurprisingly vague.

"The Internet is a big place," she said, admitting to the triteness of her evasive response. "There are a lot of users in the world, and competition makes everyone better."

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Posted by Jason Snyder on September 18, 2007 11:56 AM

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