A more secure cloud for millions of Google Apps users
Cloud computing is about making your information easily accessible from anywhere, on any device. Until today, organizations looking to secure their information beyond a password have faced costs and complexities that prevented …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google Apps had already addressed one cloud-adoption concern with free backup intended to reduce data-loss risk. Two-step verification extends that trust argument from protecting stored information to protecting account access for organizations using Gmail and Google Docs.
The same security announcement was picked up by Ars Technica and Google's official blog, underscoring that Google is tying Apps' business growth message to stronger access controls rather than password-only protection.
First-order effects
- Google Apps organizations gain an additional account-verification step, reducing reliance on passwords alone to secure access to their cloud email and documents.
Second-order effects
- For Google, security becomes a more concrete part of the Apps sales case to organizations that had viewed the cost and complexity of stronger access controls as a barrier to cloud use.
Third-order effects
- If cloud suites pair data-protection features with stronger identity controls, enterprise cloud competition shifts toward proving that remote access can be governed without recreating on-premises security complexity.
The trend: Business cloud platforms are making identity protection and data resilience core adoption requirements rather than optional add-ons.