I read today that Google Apps will soon include the features acquired from JotSpot. Not that big a surprise, but adding wikis and web site building capabilities to Google Apps will make them even more compelling in comparison to Microsoft Office. I hope Docs and Spreadsheets will be graced with these features, too.
Anyway, it reminded me of a comment Eric Schmidt made in early June. When asked if Google was thinking about alternate business plans for 5-10 years out, he said “We are, and that’s why we have Google Enterprise.” I remember snorting out loud because for those of us in the enterprise software business believe this is the big pie. How could it be a backup plan?
I’m not going to debate the size of the advertising market versus the size of the enterprise software market. This comment seemed very offhand at the time, but it’s clear that the enterprise is definitely not just a backup plan for Google. They are moving into the enterprise very quickly, taking share from Microsoft in productivity applications and establishing a foothold with Minis and Search Appliances.
I speculated that Google would acquire salesforce.com. That hasn’t happened yet, but I still believe it will. Unless Google scarfs up Etelos first, which by the way, has a sweet set of CRM apps for the iPhone and is soon to release a development toolkit for iPhone app building. Possibly a better cultural fit for Google.
But I digress. The point is that even if Eric Schmidt says the enterprise is a backup plan for Google, it ain’t. He’s being coy. Google is a real threat to MISO (Microsft, IBM, SAP, Oracle, as Jeff Nolan calls us). I’ve been saying this for a while.
We (Oracle) should see Google as the world’s most dangerous brand.
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