March 21, 2008

Google Office Appliance

Driving up to MK the other day, I was pondering the various very good reasons why the central IT folks probably don't like the idea of the people they 'support' moving over to services like Google docs (as Martin has done)...

...and the main one, I guess, is loss of control of the data - and the app... becasue we all know that OUr IT folks offer an implicit SLA* that can't be bettered , right? ;-)

But there's an obvious solution, isn't there? Just make one of these a little bigger, and get it running apps as well as search routines. Grab code updates from the net whenever they're pushed, but always run the app locally...

And the joy of it - for small business particularly - would be that all the installation you'd need to do would be to plug it in to the local network and switch it on...

So what am I missing? Why are they only selling the Google search appliances?

*A year or two ago, I was told that LTS, our in-house s/w developer team, used to have to delete old code because the disks were full... Apparently, it's still happening. I've got a spare 1 gig USB thumb drive here, if that'd be any use to them? ;-)

"So what did you do at the office today, dear?" "Oh, I bought a Google Office Appliance, plugged it in, and now everyone at work has their own account with a browser based office suite."

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Posted by ajh59 at March 21, 2008 07:24 PM
Comments

I can only hazard a guess that this *has* to be coming at some point, though with Google you can't be certain. It seems like the potential opportunities they forsee by having our data on their servers sometimes outweigh any shorter-term sales they might make to organizations to host versions of their apps through the "appliance" model. It is puzzling. There is certainly huge opportunities, and the "appliance" model seems to have a lot of potential.

Posted by: Scott Leslie at March 21, 2008 08:14 PM

I don't think Google will go this route - they may use your Google Search Appliance / Mini as a 'gateway' into your organisation, but what they really want is all your personal secrets, not so they can pry into your business, but so that some secret sauce algorithm can mine your details and present you with the most pertinent advertising - thus ensuring they remain the worlds biggest advertising firm ! Lets face it, Google Appliances have an awful record for 'within the firewall' enterprise search, would a Google Apps appliance be any better ? Look at Google Sites too - it appears they took JotSpot..... and ruined it :-(

I use Google Apps - I just wish they would sort out their privacy policy and seriously market it into the SMB / SME space, thats where SaaS can make the biggest difference.

Posted by: Jed Cawthorne at March 22, 2008 09:33 PM