As an early adopter and long-time user of G Suite (formerly Google Apps), I am in a classic love/hate relationship with these potentially game-changing technologies. I say "potentially" because only two of the core apps have lived up to their billing in the enterprise. While Gmail and Calendar have cemented their "killer app" status with business users, their unruly siblings have continued to frustrate those of us who are trying to make a clean break from legacy productivity tools to complete our move to the Cloud.
Google Sites (currently being overhauled) is probably the worst offender; but this is, for all intents and purposes, a non-core app which we can quarantine without cramping our style or creating a domino effect. Not so, Google Docs and Google Drive, which are fundamental to our productivity needs and the essential glue that holds G Suite together. Having come tantalisingly close to achieving critical mass a few years back, these ground-breaking technologies continue to languish in the enterprise wilderness for want of a few elementary tweaks. The fact that many of us still use them on a limited basis does not belie this harsh reality — nor does the raft of gushing testimonials by showcase customers. This has given Microsoft all the time in the world to play catch-up with Office 365 having been a notable latecomer to the Cloud. But as long as the King of Legacy remains captive to its clever but disjointed hybrid strategy, Google's Cloud purity and infrastructure smarts will keep it in the game. If only the product managers in that primordial alphabet soup would sit up and listen.
It's not as if Google is bereft of user feedback. Its discrete user surveys will have revealed high levels of customer satisfaction; however, having set the bar so high, simmering concerns have also bubbled to the surface. Even the public G Suite forums are littered with comments along the lines of "this is a deal-breaker for our company". There is nothing disingenuous about these "deal-breakers" since those of us who made the move to G Suite will have weighed up the benefits against the obvious limitations of the Cloud. What we didn't expect from Google was a heads-in-the-sand attitude to obvious fixes compounded by euphemistic responses which are less corporate-speak than self-parody. At the end of the day, these are productivity tools and we just want to get on with our short lives without the baggage that has bedevilled this sector ever since the shirt-and-tie went out of fashion.
The comfort blanket of a big player means a lot in the Cloud, but it also lures us into a Web of platform dependencies that are difficult to shake off even if they are of our own making. As a champion of open standards, Google will protest its innocence; but this "soft" manifestation of vendor lock-in is every bit as pernicious as the hard variety from which we have all been trying to escape. Since Microsoft has form in this area, it is a last resort for those of us who switched to Google for that very reason. Nevertheless, the former monopoly still exerts an inexorable pull on the enterprise via its re-purposed VAR network — and there is no denying that it is finally embracing both the letter and the spirit of open standards. However, the lure of Gmail is also strong and the prospect of jumping from the frying pan into the fire is enough to keep most of us on side with Google while hedging our bets about the future. So we continue to use Google Docs for the simple stuff while prolonging our exposure to the evolving charms of Microsoft Office (or LibreOffice for the purists). And we continue to rely on Google Drive as a glorified backup using its less-than-foolproof offline capabilities.
In this fluid environment, some of us will have peeked outside our fraying comfort blankets to explore the nimble delights of Zoho which could teach Microsoft and Google a thing or two about catering for real business needs. Although Zoho has been around since the year dot, it still has the reputation of a gutsy upstart — so gutsy, in fact, that it turned down a bid from Salesforce which duly went on to acquire Quip. Quip is the brainchild of two ex-Googlers who know a thing or two about scaleable productivity apps and will obviously have a good handle on the inner workings of their former employer. While this nascent service is still a little "up in the clouds" for my liking, it puts another serious contender in the frame which is bound to shake things up a little. Clearly, the general productivity market needs another big player like Salesforce and a few nimble upstarts like Zoho to keep everyone honest. And, as Adobe's ultra-dependable PDF format becomes the lingua franca of document exchange, the competitive environment can only get healthier.
It's not as if Google is bereft of user feedback. Its discrete user surveys will have revealed high levels of customer satisfaction; however, having set the bar so high, simmering concerns have also bubbled to the surface. Even the public G Suite forums are littered with comments along the lines of "this is a deal-breaker for our company". There is nothing disingenuous about these "deal-breakers" since those of us who made the move to G Suite will have weighed up the benefits against the obvious limitations of the Cloud. What we didn't expect from Google was a heads-in-the-sand attitude to obvious fixes compounded by euphemistic responses which are less corporate-speak than self-parody. At the end of the day, these are productivity tools and we just want to get on with our short lives without the baggage that has bedevilled this sector ever since the shirt-and-tie went out of fashion.
Perhaps this is the price we have to pay for low boredom thresholds, frenzied development cycles, ill-fitting acquisitions and premature product launches. And if you combine this with the chaotic evolution of the Web in recent years, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that the G Suite code base has become a maintenance drag where "obvious" fixes are not so obvious anymore. Or it may simply be the case that Google is losing its mojo having reached the dizzy heights of corporate adulthood — it is no secret that some of its best employees have cashed in their chips and returned to their roots in a deluge of new start-ups. Not that Google is finding it hard to attract new talent but one has a sense that there are too many junior cooks in the G Suite kitchen and no one is really taking ownership of its tired menu.
Then there is the question of capacity-planning for a service that could devour a planet's worth of Cloud infrastructure if it caught on too quickly. So we might like to fool ourselves into thinking that Google is keeping its powder dry lest it become a victim of its own success. The only thing we know for sure is that G Suite developers have been finding lots of reasons lately for tinkering around the edges while ignoring the boring bits that really matter.
It could also be argued that, like many tech giants, Google never really had an affinity for the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) which is G Suites's natural "domain". This is why Microsoft's Value-Added Reseller (VAR) network was so vital to its traditional dominance of this sector — that is, until they started milking this cash cow by tying it up in knots. While G Suite has its own partner programme, this is more about hand-holding new entrants to the Cloud than giving Google the kind of feedback that would really put it in the driving seat. Google's lingering blind-spots are exacerbated by its internal IT needs which are quirky to say the least and do not translate well to mainstream enterprises — veteran customers will recall the billing debacle when Google Apps was upgraded to a paid service. So the fact that Google uses (and tests) these tools across its own organisation has both pluses and minuses as far as its business customers are concerned. Contrast all of this with Google's undoubted affinity for the educational sector where G Suite is far more attuned to end-user needs. If the movers and shakers in Google are to replicate this relationship with the business grassroots, they would do well to hire a hard-headed guru from outside the normal corporate catchment e.g. a back-office manager from a middle-of-the-road law firm, accountancy practice or building contractor.
When G Suite's limitations take us back to the drawing board we find that our prospects on the outside aren't much better. This is a sure-fire recipe for hubris within the emerging duopoly. In this maturing market, Google and Microsoft are busy corralling their prodigious user bases into distinct ecosystems which have all the interchangeability of chalk and cheese. Notwithstanding the veneer of compatibility, they both take a bit of getting used to and their much-touted data migration tools are hit-and-miss to say the least. This means that there is never a good time to switch — and the longer you wait, the harder it gets. Those who do take the plunge (in either direction) will typically start afresh; however, this is not the kind of enterprise upheaval you will want to repeat too often if you value your career.Then there is the question of capacity-planning for a service that could devour a planet's worth of Cloud infrastructure if it caught on too quickly. So we might like to fool ourselves into thinking that Google is keeping its powder dry lest it become a victim of its own success. The only thing we know for sure is that G Suite developers have been finding lots of reasons lately for tinkering around the edges while ignoring the boring bits that really matter.
It could also be argued that, like many tech giants, Google never really had an affinity for the Small and Medium Enterprise (SME) which is G Suites's natural "domain". This is why Microsoft's Value-Added Reseller (VAR) network was so vital to its traditional dominance of this sector — that is, until they started milking this cash cow by tying it up in knots. While G Suite has its own partner programme, this is more about hand-holding new entrants to the Cloud than giving Google the kind of feedback that would really put it in the driving seat. Google's lingering blind-spots are exacerbated by its internal IT needs which are quirky to say the least and do not translate well to mainstream enterprises — veteran customers will recall the billing debacle when Google Apps was upgraded to a paid service. So the fact that Google uses (and tests) these tools across its own organisation has both pluses and minuses as far as its business customers are concerned. Contrast all of this with Google's undoubted affinity for the educational sector where G Suite is far more attuned to end-user needs. If the movers and shakers in Google are to replicate this relationship with the business grassroots, they would do well to hire a hard-headed guru from outside the normal corporate catchment e.g. a back-office manager from a middle-of-the-road law firm, accountancy practice or building contractor.
The comfort blanket of a big player means a lot in the Cloud, but it also lures us into a Web of platform dependencies that are difficult to shake off even if they are of our own making. As a champion of open standards, Google will protest its innocence; but this "soft" manifestation of vendor lock-in is every bit as pernicious as the hard variety from which we have all been trying to escape. Since Microsoft has form in this area, it is a last resort for those of us who switched to Google for that very reason. Nevertheless, the former monopoly still exerts an inexorable pull on the enterprise via its re-purposed VAR network — and there is no denying that it is finally embracing both the letter and the spirit of open standards. However, the lure of Gmail is also strong and the prospect of jumping from the frying pan into the fire is enough to keep most of us on side with Google while hedging our bets about the future. So we continue to use Google Docs for the simple stuff while prolonging our exposure to the evolving charms of Microsoft Office (or LibreOffice for the purists). And we continue to rely on Google Drive as a glorified backup using its less-than-foolproof offline capabilities.
In this fluid environment, some of us will have peeked outside our fraying comfort blankets to explore the nimble delights of Zoho which could teach Microsoft and Google a thing or two about catering for real business needs. Although Zoho has been around since the year dot, it still has the reputation of a gutsy upstart — so gutsy, in fact, that it turned down a bid from Salesforce which duly went on to acquire Quip. Quip is the brainchild of two ex-Googlers who know a thing or two about scaleable productivity apps and will obviously have a good handle on the inner workings of their former employer. While this nascent service is still a little "up in the clouds" for my liking, it puts another serious contender in the frame which is bound to shake things up a little. Clearly, the general productivity market needs another big player like Salesforce and a few nimble upstarts like Zoho to keep everyone honest. And, as Adobe's ultra-dependable PDF format becomes the lingua franca of document exchange, the competitive environment can only get healthier.
G Suite is nothing if not a long-term play for Google who would do well to put their jaded keyboards to one side and reflect on the potted history of sustainable product engineering in mature, competitive markets (not to be confused with vendor lock-in and consumer fads). This will alert them to the dangers of resting on their laurels and placing too much emphasis on frills and perception management. Attention-spans permitting, they will also draw on the boring lessons of continuous improvement and enduring customer loyalty. They won't have to look far because some of their own technologies are excellent standard bearers even if they came to prominence during leaner and meaner times. However, for a putative perennial workhorse like G Suite, Google will find more striking analogies in the auto industry where word-of-mouth cuts through the marketing fluff and spreads like wildfire. As long-standing Volkswagen Golf customers will testify: the devil is in the detail and it is the boring bits that bring true incremental greatness — and this does not preclude the odd boo-boo or creative flourish.
All is not lost, however.
Google has finally addressed G Suite's most obvious "deal-breaker" with the launch of Team Drive which may be a sign of better things to come. Not to be confused with a competing service of the same name, this is only going to "cloud" the issue before it even sees the light of day. Nevertheless, it is a sad indictment of our falling expectations that enterprise customers are already drooling over this "elementary tweak" and all of the boring possibilities that it entails.
I look forward to putting Team Drive through its paces in the coming weeks and months.
Google has finally addressed G Suite's most obvious "deal-breaker" with the launch of Team Drive which may be a sign of better things to come. Not to be confused with a competing service of the same name, this is only going to "cloud" the issue before it even sees the light of day. Nevertheless, it is a sad indictment of our falling expectations that enterprise customers are already drooling over this "elementary tweak" and all of the boring possibilities that it entails.
I look forward to putting Team Drive through its paces in the coming weeks and months.
Postscript
29-Apr-2019
Over two years after this post, Google has renamed "Team Drives" to "Shared Drives". In a classic example of virtual signalling dressed up in self-exculpatory corporate-speak, the Google G Suite Updates Blog gives us the following reasoning:Our users have told us that they use Team Drives for a lot more than sharing within teams, so “shared drives” makes it easier to understand how you could use them.Perhaps this change also owes something to the final paragraph of my blog post (above), not to mention the possible legal ramifications. Nevertheless, I think the name change is for the better since "team" is far too limiting while also affecting the mindset of those who prioritise new features. I refer particularly to my original misgivings about Google Drive in Make G Suite Great.