CIOIN

In February 2007, Google announced Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), a collaboration and communication solution offered as software as a service (SaaS). Initially combining a portal, e-mail, instant messaging (IM), calendars, document sharing, and concurrent document creation-all for the price of $50 per user per year-the solution rapidly caught enterprises' imaginations.

Unfortunately, quickly adopting GAPE without understanding its quirks or looking at other alternatives is likely to become a career-limiting move. Happily, looking at the larger picture-studying a variety of SaaS-based collaboration and content solutions-is a career-enhancing move. Companies looking at GAPE need to get comfortable with three main areas before moving ahead: the SaaS delivery model, the capabilities of the solution, and Google as a company.

Over the past five years, SaaS-based solutions have proven themselves in the market. However, a SaaS-based solution can still be a challenge for certain companies. For example, some SaaS solutions assume that an Internet connection is always available; financial institutions prefer that corporate information be stored behind the corporate firewall; and support via a website can be a shock to companies used to frequent face-to-face meetings with suppliers. GAPE initially came out of Google's consumer product line. This accounts for the product's clean, easy-to-use interface.

Unfortunately, it also accounts for the product's gaps in functionality, such as the lack of user roles, no departmental categories, and minimal records management capabilities. While Google will probably address these shortcomings over time, it highlights the Google enterprise applications division's difficulty at creating enterprise-centric solutions within a company that gets 99% of its revenue from consumer-focused services. Finally, Google itself can take some getting used to. The company has a history of releasing incomplete products, calling them beta software, and issuing updates on a "known only to Google" schedule. Furthermore, some companies are leery of entrusting their corporate documents to a company that makes its living from analyzing content and displaying it to the world. To these companies, keeping information secure seems at odds with Google's emphasis on information sharing. In many ways, Google marches to a different drummer, and at this stage it's not always in step with its enterprise customers.

To sum up, Google and its collaboration competitors (e.g., Cisco Systems, Microsoft, and Oracle) will continue to improve the available options, and smart companies will find value in waiting for the market to mature before making a decision.