Google Apps vs. Microsoft Office Part 2

Back to the issue. I'm not going to rehash all the talk around the Web on this subject. ZDNet offered a pretty good breakdown a few weeks ago, Google Office vs. Microsoft Office: What’s the end game?. But I do have some random thoughts, starting with the revelation that I bought the Google's enterprise edition last night for our business.

#1: Google Apps is a no-brainer for us.
Okay, so i$250 for 5 users for a year is not bad. Obviously, better than buy complete Office licenses for everyone. Not to mention, I’d like to switch to a Mac sometime soon and I’d rather not have to buy a new version of Office when I do. Also, as a small startup we’re taking a de-centralized approach to IT spending. Individually, we’re responsbile for our own computers and the software we run on them. The business picks up anything powered by servers or service providers.

#2: Google’s brand problems.
Not so much the brand, itself, but what people know about the brand. People know Google as search. The world, at large, doesn’t really understand how deep this company really is. Good problem to have, I suppose, but Google has a lot of marketing to do. They may have to face the reality their homepage is both a strength and a weakness.

#3. This will lead to Google buying Intuit.
Microsoft may eventually bring Office to the Web, but try to leap-frog over Google by integrating those applications with their CRM and accounting solutions. On the Web, it’s not about opening and closing applications, but central dashboards, control panels and portals. It’s about having all the functionality and applications you need, one click away from a single start page. Google knows this. Should Microsoft do some heavy integration of Office with those other business applications,  Google will aptly step in and buy Intuit. Heck, that deal is probably already on the board. This could pave the way for Google Checkout to become the de facto eCommerce engine in the world for small business. Bye bye, Paybal. The street will then put a target of $3600 on GOOG.

The point: Getting your website to do eCommerce credit card transactions is not so bad. Getting those transactions into your books is a problem. It doesn’t happen smoothly, seamlessly, automatically because while QuickBooks is the 800-lb gorilla, Intuit has yet to offer any APIs or web services around an on-line service. Their model is dated, to say the least. With QuickBooks under Google, I’m pretty sure we’d be able develop websites that tie easily into our books because that would ultimately drive Google Checkout transactions into billions, perhaps. The tough part for Intuit is that Google could just decide to build a scaled down version of Quickbooks just like they’ve done with Office-like apps.

#4. But wait, aren’t there others?
Absolutely. In the groupware/office productivity space, let’s not forget the scrappy alternatives, Zimbra and Zoho, for example. Or even Joyent, if you’re looking for just an email and calendar solution. These folks are making some nice applications. Marketing and scale are big, but there’s still an art to application and software development. Any team of programmers and designers, regardless where they work, can come up with better ideas and products.

#5. Less money on Office, more money on Web.
Buying lots of licenses for Microsoft Office can be expensive. So if you don’t have to spend all that money on Word, Excel and PowerPoint, maybe you’ll want spend it on your website. Wishful thinking on our part, sure, but if Google does indeed make a dent with Google Apps, and there’s no reason to believe they won’t, a lot of companies will be re-budgeting likely to the benefit of their marketing departments. Now that’s an interesting thought. Where do you think some of those marketing dollars will go?

I’ll take a stab at answering that question: “What’s the end game?” Move dollars from IT to marketing where Google has a unique and dominant advantage.

Posted by Todd

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