Ten hot relevant questions from Microsoft to Google Apps Users

All about Microsoft talks about an email sent by Microsoft to a virtual “corporate spokesperson” which goes after the deal struck between Google and CapGemini for providing Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE) which is supposed to be the biggest hit to Microsoft over its monopoly in Desktop Office suites space despite just one other good player – Open Office.

 

The email from Microsoft goes directly against Google over the aforementioned deal by giving self-appeasing leadership stats of Microsoft in Office Suite space like “more than 90% enterprise agreement renewal” and “a partner ecosystem that has grown 43% on the Office platform since last year”.

 

Then the email lists down 10 most prominent questions that Google customers should ask while thinking of going for GAPE. These questions are the ones which keep swirling in the minds of Google Apps users and keep them aback from going for the best freely available Office offering in full swing – the ones about the standards, security, scalability, maintainability, support, ad based platform, limited features etc. Here is the comprehensive list and comments –

 

  1. How many enterprise users of Google actually exist? (That is typical.)
  2. What about well-known beta tags over almost every other Google app without any disclosure of release schedule to even the most values customers? (I just mentioned yesterday that even Microsoft is following the same path.)
  3. Does promoting GAPE as alternative of Microsoft Office means that now Google will be increasing the complexity as well as cost? (Has Microsoft ever dared to justify the costs of its own Office app?)
  4. Taking into consideration, apps contribute 1% to total Google economy, will they be first to be shut down, if Google starts moving downward? (May be!)
  5. Doesn’t Google think that covering only online customers is very small base as compared to those coming under Microsoft’s niche over desktop (and soon online) as platform? (Then what is making Microsoft to put this point in the list?)
  6. Provided so many features missing from the list, where does GAPE stand? (That depends on the price and it will be minimal – that’s for sure.)
  7. How much reliable is Google’s definition of uptime and downtime is when the platform is itself web? (How much stable are the Microsoft applications? Even Vista keeps giving problems at times.)
  8. What about enterprise level support when Google provides support only for limited hours? (That is an issue to be thought about.)
  9. When Google says 10% features of Google’s applications are used by enterprise customers, is Google generalizing all the roles on one plane? (Statements can be morphed in any way but of course, it can also be the case.)
  10. How much certain it is to fulfil the customer requests in rollouts of new features? (Has it ever been possible?)

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