Why enterprises are moving to Google Apps, Gmail

Though it started selling software to universities and small businesses, Google has pervaded more large businesses during the past year with Google Apps, the company's suite of messaging and productivity software. Analysts say Google Enterprise, the division of Google that runs Apps, has added many features to the product that make it more attractive to enterprise IT departments.

JohnsonDiversey, a company that sells commercial cleaning products, is Google's most recent win. It moved its 12,000 employees over to the premier edition of Google Apps, which includes Gmail, instant messaging, documents and spreadsheets (among other apps) for US$50 per user per year.

"E-mail is critical to our work, but we're trying to simplify IT," says Brent Hoag, JohnsonDiversey's IT director. "We want less infrastructure to maintain, and Google [Gmail] allows us to do that."

Because Google hosts Google Apps in its own data centers, companies that buy the product do not need to maintain servers in-house (a process widely known as cloud computing or software as a service). According to Hoag, JohnsonDiversey had been managing several application servers and two different mail systems prior to moving to Gmail.

Google Apps has matured substantially during the past year with more enterprise features. Among them are the ability for IT groups to have greater control for what new features are rolled out to their users. Productivity applications, such as Google Docs & Spreadsheets, have also seen gradual improvements. Google baked in more advanced features, such as macros for spreadsheets. Google Apps also work better with BlackBerry e-mail, as it created a connector to BlackBerry Enterprise Server.

Perhaps most significantly, at a Google Apps CIO roundtable event in San Francisco this week, Google announced that enterprise users of Google Apps could access Gmail through an Outlook client. The company hopes it will quell the protests by users who have become tethered to the desktop app and who, as a result, have sometimes hindered enterprise adoption of Google Apps.

"For me, it eliminates the last hurdle or mindset for letting go of [Microsoft] Exchange or the Exchange mentality," said Bob Rudy, vice president and CIO of Avago, a semiconductor company that moved its employees over to Google Apps, during the event. "This will help with adoption."

Google's addition of the ability to access Gmail via Outlook surprised some analysts. A year ago, such a move would have been unheard of since Google was offering such a stark contrast to the Microsoft enterprise environment. But according to Google executives and analysts who follow Google's enterprise push, the decision came from hearing the needs of current and prospective customers.

"Google listened hard to what enterprises wanted, and they delivered much of that," says Matt Cain, a Gartner analyst. "They have developed true proof-points, where companies are saying that they have been successful. Now we're seeing more true enterprise interest in Google, rather than just curiosity."

Other enterprise adopters of Google Apps on hand at the event included Genentech and the Morgans Hotel Group. During a presentation on the state of Google Apps product, Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise, said that the company has "dozens" of companies with more than 1,000 employees using Apps. He also said that it has generated "hundreds of millions" in revenue for Google.

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