Seven Questions for Google Enterprise Chief Amit Singh
It's been a big year for many things related to the Enterprise business at Google. For one thing, it launched both Google Drive and its cloud computing platform. — Then there's Google Apps, the suite of Web-based office applications …
Context & Ripple Effects
Google’s enterprise effort has moved from plans to connect its products with Cognos, Oracle and Salesforce.com to addressing the adoption barriers around Google Apps. The 2010 hiring of an Oracle sales executive also signaled a push to build enterprise sales capacity.
The launches of Google Drive and a cloud computing platform give that effort a broader product base. They also extend Google’s contest beyond web-based office software: its 2011 storage and App Engine push had already placed it in competition with Amazon’s cloud offerings.
First-order effects
- Google can sell Google Apps, Drive and its cloud platform as a broader business-software portfolio, strengthening its stated challenge to Microsoft’s enterprise position.
- Amazon faces a more direct Google rival in cloud infrastructure and platform services alongside their existing competition for business customers.
Second-order effects
- Enterprise buyers evaluating Google Apps gain adjacent file storage and cloud-platform options from the same vendor, making the product suite—not office software alone—the comparison point.
- Google’s enterprise sales organization must translate product launches into adoption among buyers whose earlier concerns had held back Google Apps.
Third-order effects
- If Google can pair web-based productivity tools with cloud infrastructure, enterprise competition shifts toward integrated service portfolios rather than stand-alone office applications.
- The rivalry between Google and Amazon indicates that cloud platforms are becoming a central route for vendors seeking enterprise technology spending.
The trend: Enterprise vendors are broadening from individual software products into connected productivity, storage and cloud-platform portfolios.