Google Apps vs SharePoint

We continue our series about how Microsoft doesn't like Google. At this time - the remake of the old TV series Moonlighting with Bruce Willis and Cybill Shepherd, starring Google as Bruce Willis. It's not just funny movie about Google Apps, but also a good opportunity to practice your English (if you need). And we hope that Google will fire back with its own quirky advert.

While the deal between Google and General Motors is still unpublic, Google has officially signed another large Google Apps customer - the largest Spanish banking group BBVA. BBVA plans to implement Google Apps for 110 thousand employees in 26 countries up to the end of 2012. Thus, Google has updated its personal SaaS record (in terms of project volume). It's interesting that BBVA moves to Google Apps from Microsoft Exchange (so Office 365 loses again). Besides, this deal will be a huge step forward for Google and for the whole SaaS industry because it's the largest SaaS project in the banking sector. After all, we all know how carefully banks  protect their commercial data. See also the Top 5 largest SaaS projects.

According to the latest insider information, GM is already about to move from their current collaboration system Lotus Notes to Google Apps. It's about 100 thousand seats. At first this information appeared earlier this month - when the Wall Street Journal reported that Google and General Motors signed a preliminary agreement according to which GM will test Google Apps and Google has to meet some additional requirements. But GM haven't made the official statement yet. If all goes well, then Google will update its personal record on the SaaS project size. So far, the largest Google Apps customer is Valeo - 30 thousand users. And of course, it's a big victory for the SaaS market. But it's not clear yet what additional requirements GM presented to Google. Won't Google transform the service in favor of big business and make it less usable for small business?

One advantage of Google's main advantages over Facebook is that the search giant can perfectly integrate businesses and individual users (clients) in the single network (Google +). And if it succeed, Google+ will become the successful platform for advertising, unlike Facebook, which hasn't achieved the significant progress in the advertising incomes yet. The first big step in this direction has been done by Google today: from now Google Apps Now users can log in to Google+ under their corporate accounts and use Google+ for business needs. First, Google+ can serve as a social layer via creation of business/project groups (circles) with employee profiles. Second, it can be used as an intranet microblogging system for discussions and file sharing (like Chatter, Yammer ...). Third, it allows to search and support customers via Google+. But of course, the killer Google+ for business is its video chat app Google Hangouts.

Google Apps for Business gets a new interesting feature - the read (i.e. open) notification. It works this way: you send a message and if you don't receive the reply for a long time, you can open the message and check whether the recepient has read it or not. The notification can be enabled by Google Apps account admin for all users and works only for internal communications (within the domain). Thus, you can make internal collaboration more strict and possibly more effective. Because employee, that sends an important task via email can control its reception and if necessary can call the recipient and ask to check the mail.

During the last 2 weeks Google has almost made another revolution on the Web. No one expected that in the near future someone will be able to break the social monopoly of Facebook, but it looks like Google will succeed at this time. And because today in order to be successful, any business should be a part of the Social Web, then, want-or-not you have to sort out how to use Google+. Fortunately, there is still enough time, because the network is now working in a half-closed mode (registration is by invitation only). Additionally, the key business features will appear only in the second half of the year. But meanwhile you can get used to them:

It wasn't so easy to create a list of the largest SaaS projects. Because though SaaS vendors would like to promote themselves, they often have no clearance from customer to go public on their deployments. Sometimes, when a dispute on the largest projects starts, they claim that they have a customer with XXX users, but don't tell what customer and provide no proof. Therefore, our rating is based on unverified information. However, it is interesting that neither Salesforce nor Google Apps are included in it. And four out of five deployments - are talent management (or human capital - HRM) systems:

For Microsoft health and safety of the users - is the highest priority. And to prevent people from falling and being injured while working with SharePoint on the go, Microsoft just doesn't release mobile clients for SharePoint (except one for Windows Phone, which is used by very few users). But there are people for whom money means more than user security. Harmon.ie (the company known for its Outlook plug-in, which allows to collaborate on files stored in SharePoint) has released a mobile application for iPhone/iPad that works as a mobile SharePoint app. Now mobile users with smartphones and tablets can collaboratively edit documents stored in SharePoint, comment them, track the history of changes and versions, agree the documents. It's so easy and convenient that people do this even while walking and because of this already 2675 were injured due to falls and other accidents. The sufferers have already created a web site protesting against the new mobile app - www.DontSharepointWhileWalking.com

Recently we noted that for a long time there is no news about the progress of the enterprise software superstar - intranet system Microsoft SharePoint. And today the news appeared: SharePoint 2010 finally adds full support for the third-party browsers: Firefox, Chrome, and partial support for Apple Safari. Developers say that the limitations of these browsers didn't allowed to use all the bells and whistles of the SharePoint interface before. Wow! That's a really huge achievement of SharePoint developers. There is still no word about support of mobile platforms (except Windows Phone). But there is a word about social features. Jared Spataro, Microsoft's senior director of SharePoint product management recently said that they were carefully studying the opportunities of social networking technologies for enterprise collaboration and Microsoft's approach will be to increase enterprise social features in SharePoint. Looks like SharePoint is really in crisis.

In this case by "Dropbox for Enterprise" we don't mean the business version of Dropbox. The fact is that the expression "Dropbox for Enterprise" has become a new meme. The largest enterprise software vendors want to release a product under the label "Dropbox for Enterprise". That's how they say: "We want to create something like Dropbox for Enterprise" (watch the video). Recall, Dropbox - is the super-popular file syncing and sharing service, which has already attracted 50 million users thanks to its simplicity and multi-platform support. It's business usage is limited due to the strict corporate security standards. But employees still tend to use it bypassing IT admins, and that is why the enterprise vendors are standing in the line to become the Enterprise Dropbox provider.

Today, Microsoft has rolled out a new service Office 365, which is a reincarnation of the SaaS package BPOS. The name change was expected, since Microsoft critics have referred BPOS as "Big Piece of Shit" instead of "Business Productivity Online Services". But not only name is to be changed. The new service except SaaS versions Exchange Online, Sharepoint Online and Lync Online, will include the online office tools Office Web Apps. I.e. Office 365 can now be considered as a full-fledged alternative to Google Apps. The service will be available in 2 editions. Small Business Edition for companies with less than 25 users costs $6/user/month and includes the basic functions. Enterprise edition provides additional customization and administration features, full functionality and provides users with desktop suite Office Office Professional Plus with pay-as-you-go licensing. This edition costs from $2 to $ 27/user/month depending on configuration. Recall, Microsoft also plans to include its CRM and ERP to the SaaS suite. At the moment, Office 365 is in beta stage and will be available worldwide next year.

Just yesterday we talked about Sharepoint Workspace - the tool which allows to sync files between Sharepoint server and user's computer, and today the cloud file collaborative service Box.net (which is positioned as a Sharepoint alternative) released the similar tool Box Sync. This is a program that is installed on your computer and allows you to sync any folder in your online Box.net account with desktop. If you change any file in that folder, it will be immediately synced, and those users who have access to this folder - will receive an alert. For now Box Sync is only available for Windows and only in the paid (business) accounts. Versions for Mac and Linux, as well as the free version will appear later this year.

We have already mentioned that p2p collaboration app MS Office Groove was renamed to SharePoint Workspace and utilized as an offline client for Sharepoint. Now we have got the chance to see SharePoint Workspace 2010 in action and it appears that offline access to Sharepoint - is not the only function of this application. First, SharePoint Workspace can be used without Sharepoint - as well as MS Office Groove. I.e. you can create Groove Workspace (with files, calendar, discussions) and sync it with computers of co-workers or customers. However, the audio-chat and permission levels disappeared from the application. Recall that SharePoint Workspace is not sold as a part of Sharepoint Server, but as a part of Office 2010 Pro Plus.

Last week together with Office 2010, Sharepoint 2010 was officially released. Of course, this is an important event for Enterprise 2.0 industry, however, not so important as we expected. Because despite the fact that Sharepoint 2010 was introduced as a cloud solution, at the moment neither Hosted, nor SaaS version of Sharepoint 2010 are not available. Hosted version (in BPOS-D) will be available only by the end of the year. SaaS-version (Sharepoint Online) by the end of the year will will be available for beta testing and official release is expected only in mid-2011. (We included Sharepoint Online in our Top 10 cloud platforms for Enterprise, but apparently that was too early). And now about the positive moments: Sharepoint 2010 really contains a lot of improvements that will strengthen its (almost monopolistic) position of the intranet platforms market: