Google Moves Onto Microsoft's Turf in Business Software
SAN FRANCISCO — It has taken years, but Google seems to be cutting into Microsoft's stronghold — businesses. — Google's software for businesses, Google Apps, consists of applications for document writing, collaboration …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google’s 2007 business-app launch began a sustained effort to challenge Microsoft in workplace software. By 2009, coverage was still focused on the barriers holding Google Apps back, indicating that product availability alone had not settled the enterprise contest.
The competitive pressure had become pronounced enough that Microsoft answered Google’s advance in July 2012. Google Apps’ document and collaboration tools, together with Google Drive and Google’s cloud platform, give that challenge a broader business-software base.
First-order effects
- Google expands the scope of its business offering beyond individual applications, giving organizations a Google-branded option for document work, collaboration, storage, and cloud computing.
- Microsoft faces a more direct challenge to its business-software position from a rival whose enterprise products are organized around Google Apps.
Second-order effects
- Business buyers gain a stronger alternative when evaluating productivity and collaboration software, increasing pressure on Microsoft to defend the value of its own business suite.
- Google’s cloud platform and Drive link its workplace tools to adjacent computing and storage services, making enterprise adoption relevant to more than document software.
Third-order effects
- If Google Apps continues to overcome the adoption barriers identified in 2009, business productivity software will be increasingly contested by cloud-delivered suites rather than dominated by a single incumbent.
- The contest points toward enterprise software competition being shaped by the breadth of a vendor’s collaboration, storage, and cloud services, not solely by standalone applications.
The trend: Business productivity software is moving toward cloud-based suites, with Google using collaboration and infrastructure services to challenge Microsoft’s enterprise foothold.