The Future As Seen By Me In 2010

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Well looky here, things one has scanned in eh. (ignore the photo, that's some guy that made some accounting software, not sure what became of him ;) MIKE RIVERSDALE is fuming. The expensive headphones he bought in Sydney three weeks ago have just died. His first reaction is not to randomly spill expletives into his coffee, but to use his iPhone to vent his frustration to his Twitter con- tacts, under the moniker Miramar Mike. "I will also put, 'What should I do?' It's a conversation. I'm reaching out to the people following me." The council predicts hand-held digital devices such as smartphones will rule the world in 2040. They already rule the life of Mr Riversdale, whose company WaveAdept helps businesses adapt - their computing sys- tems to allow staff to work from anywhere - and with anyone. In order of fre- equency, he uses his iPhone to tweet (1136 followers; 8363 tweets since joining), e-mail, make phone calls and use online services, such as checki
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Google Applications - Not Enterprise Worthy?

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[Updated] Seems Taylor Woodrow (large UK construction company) also gained savings by moving to GMail and beyond - CIO Magazine report

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Rod Drury (local entrepeneur) has suffered from a lack of Google Docs functionality and made the statement, Google Docs is not a team collaboration tool. His point isn't limited to a select piece of functionality but the overall experience/approach/culture of Google:
I’m sure Google themselves do this all the time and for that very basic scenario not be handled shows a staggering lack of enterprise empathy or knowledge.

I questioned whether the tool was the right tool for what he and his team were trying to do.
However, I would question the underlying belief that Rod and others have about Google "not being good enough for the 'enterprise'*". If your organisation is not limited by legal issues (as NZ Government agencies maybe - learn more) then I believe all sizes of companies will gain immediate benefit from moving to 'cloud computing' which I believe is currently best served by the Google Applications (although Zoho is most certainly not to be sniffed at).

Note that this is work that your 'knowledge worker' carrys out - information creation, dissemination and collaboration. I don't advocate using Google Spreadsheets to run your accounting system (Xero can do that for you).

Having said that I would not necessarily advocate you dump what you have and start afresh with Google Apps - if using the network drive and Word 97 works for you, stay there - I would challenge that being unconnected really works for you as words love to be free.

Maybe the approach is similar to the newly announced Auckland University GMail roll out and start using the simplest 'cloud computing' application, email. Once you have people in the cloud then you have many more options, GMail + Zoho Docs + Xero + ... you are free(er) to choose. Of course it may be easier to use the Google offerings but hey, that's your choice(ish).


Other related posts:

* Can you define "enterprise" for the world?

Comments

  1. Anonymous12 July 2008 at 00:18

    I'm sure that internet-based services are the way of the future, but Google has a long way to go to be enterprise-grade. (The jury is also out on whether Microsoft can switch its stuff to cloud based - as you and i both well know!)Both might get a viable solution by acquiring someone with a smarter solution, e.g. Zoho, but Google still has to get its culture to support enterprise-grade apps right.

    PS I own some Google - it's an awesome money machine and I can't see anyone close to knocking its place in search and ads for some time.

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The Future As Seen By Me In 2010

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