A lot of people have taken on an opinion on Google Buzz – so have I, but for most part, I don’t agree with anybody. Reports are running in, as you might have guessed, that Buzz is lame and no match to Twitter or Facebook. An argument that seems reasonable, but from my point of view it is not true. See the twitter opinion and Business Insider with a pre-review.

A couple of days ago, I had a class in Strategy and Performance Measurement. One of my classmates argued that Google lacked direction and didn’t have a uniform business strategy. If your point of view are the Mainstream Perception (MP) of Google, yes then it might seem like Google lacks a direction in strategy. The MP is something like “Hey look what we made” attitude towards new products and technology. What you should realize is that every new feature or function, such as Google Buzz, are an improvement on the Business Platform Google are building. The platform is known as Google Apps, as you might know already.

If you have tried Google Buzz, and didn’t like it – Then you should consider the business case:

Your company are using Google Apps. This means it is the primary fascilitator of communications. You are running an intranet on Google Sites, you are video chatting and instant messaging (IM) through Talk, sharing calenders, sharing documents and using their Office Application and E-mail client. Your e-mail are Pushed to your smartphone along with contacts and calendar updates and so forth. In between the E-mail and IM communication there is a gap. The E-mail are able to reach every one in your company but in a very formel and “slow” mannor. IM are fast, easy to use and not so formal but limited to a very small subset of the company. Buzz  are just as Facebook and Twitter, an agile communicator with the ability to reach a crowd and still a be a Point to Point (P2P) communicator. The difference is, it is an integrated service. Which I think i very powerful!

Google Buzz might not be a revolution to personal users. But it is yet another screwdriver (not the drink) in the toolbox towards making Google Apps a VERY serious competitor to Microsofts company IT architecture.

Why do Google have this strategy?

Well because they are pretty good at predicting the future. Since more and more communications have moved from offline communication, to inhouse hosted services and later on to cloud services. Google are pointing in the direction that the future of company communication services are Cloud based and preferrely based on their services, rather than an expensive infrastructure from Microsoft.

Det er efterhånden et stykke tid siden at Google blæste til angreb på MSO (Microsoft Office) og efter det er der da også flere der er faldet for fristelsen af gratis licenser og en lækker cloud arkitektur. Microsoft er dog ikke dårlige til at lave forretning, således har de da også lagt mærke til denne trussel og lanceret Office Live – selvom det nok næppe er derfor MS har lanceret det.

Office Live er en løsning baseret på hvad der ligner Sharepoint. Selvfølgelig er det nedskaleret væsentligt i funktionalitet. Sådan ret praktisk er der der to udgaver:

• En personlig (Standard Office udgaverne)
• En til små virksomheder (Office Enterprise)

Det er muligt at invitere folk til at samarbejde med andre mennesker, så man kan have et lille digitalt arbejdsrum for ens fodboldklub, små projekter osv.

Hver bruger har gratis stillet 5 GB til rådighed fra MS og det er mere eller mindre integreret med Microsoft Office.

Jeg syntes i skulle kigge på det en gang: Office Live Workspace

Google er igang med at bygge sykroniseringsløsninger til rigtig mange mobile enheder. Dette er fx iphonen, symbian telefoner, Windows Mobile, RIM osv. Det er uden tvivl er vigtig brik i deres satsning på Google Apps som en platform for virksomheder – der må mobil synkronisering jo bare virke. Og når det regner på præsten, så drypper det på degnen, eller hvertfald os private brugere som ser det behagelige i at dele kalendere og have sine kontakpersoner til at ligge i skyen.

Google satsede i starten på SyncML, hvilket er en meget fin platform. Men for nogle enheder skiftede de til Exchange, hvilket jeg ikke kan andet end bifalde. Det er mega nice at få Pushed sine opdaterede kontakter over netværket! Det har dog haltet med kalendren også selvom de påstod det skulle virke til iPhone (3GS). Når man med en dansk konfigureret iPhone kom ind på m.google.com/sync for at konfigurere hvilke kalendere man ville have sync’et, blev man mødt med “Denne enhed er ikke understøttet”. Der gik lidt tid inden jeg regnede ud at, man bare skulle skifte sprog på siden. Så var iPhonen pludselig understøttet og sekunderne efter jeg trykkede ok til indstillingerne lå mine kalendere på telefonen. Det er næsten magi! Det er absolut luksus at få synkroniseret sin kalender med andres i skyen også On The Run, for at udtrykke det på den måde.

Nyttige adresser:
m.google.com/sync specifikt for synkronisering
m.google.com for andre Mobile services fra Google.