On the death of Office

Google Apps is starting to turn from a sideshow into a proper business. Google seems to be using revenue from its search business to undermine paid for software of a competitor, Microsoft. Ironically this is how Microsoft killed Netscape and unfortunately for MS it is a very effective tactic. There are far too many advanced features in MS Office which means it is vulnerable to a stripped down competitor like Apps. Google charges comparatively nothing ($50 per year for the premium service) and hosts everything itself.

This approach is not without weaknesses if Google wants to get out of the SME market. As they grow some enterprises may want to take all their applications in house, not host them on Google’s servers. At the moment Google only offers its enterprise apps stuck to its own servers. Cloud computing is very attractive but any large organisation will want to control its own cloud.

Theory Y

Ultimately what I really want is the capability to hack together different suites into one service. So for example we could use Gmail for mail, SocialText for wikis, Sonar Dashboard for networking and Connectbeam for tagging and search. New services should be easy to trial and add to enable quick decision making when someone finds a new app they want to try. At the moment getting a new application added to a corporate environment is a very time consuming process with the result that the applications being used are miles behind what is available.

Software alone is not the solution though, these tools can only support good management. I am currently reading the Human Side of Enterprise. It was first published in 1960 but is fresh as the day it was written. The approach to management it espouses is maximum freedom and maximum responsibility for employees. Most organisations are not run this way and still cling to the idea that people are naturally lazy/incompetent and need to be constantly corralled by a management class. The alternative view is that people are naturally enterprising and will respond positively to a challenge so long as they aren’t constantly interfered with. Organisations like WL Gore & Associates and Semco have succeeded taking this approach long before collaborative software became a reality. And to really get the best out of collaborative software, management will have to change too.

Read more:
On balance
On Gmail
On trampolines

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On Gmail

To paraphrase the Arctic Monkeys it’s the beginning of the end for Outlook. TechCrunch reports that the Australian schools system has switched from Outlook to Gmail. Outlook is the canary in the mine for MS Office, it may be the first to fall but the other apps are not far behind.

Gmail is the best email system in the world. It’s not perfect but it is the best. Threaded conversations are the best. A near perfect spam filter is the best. Its UI is the best.

Where does it need to improve to become truly revolutionary? For my money what it needs is integration with a broader enterprise network. That means going beyond the clunky calendar functions in Outlook and melding Gmail into something like Connectbeam or Trampoline Systems, then it would be truly remarkable and part of a worthy enterprise tool.

Now Google has the makings of this with its apps suite but they need to show more imagination. In this they are behind MS which has already started tinkering with enterprise networks in the shape of TownSquare. Now I fully expect TownSquare not to make it as MS seems to have taken its eye off the enterprise apps ball, apparently believing that all they have to do is trundle out endless Office updates and all will be well. Gmail starting to replace Outlook shows they are heading for a rude awakening.

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On trampolines
On TownSquare

On facebook enterprise

I like the song but not the singer. Enterprise networks will rule the world vacated by MS Office but I doubt facebook will deliver them. It’s rare that a company produces both enterprise and consumer products successfully. Most consumers have never heard of Oracle and most companies have never used Google apps. Microsoft has done it but it is the exception.

The reason is that the two types of customer want radically different things. Corporate users need a high degree of uniformity across the network and usualy integration with existing systems. Individuals usually have a suite of apps stitched together and are much happier to give new things a try.

Facebook’s Chamath Palihapitiya is optimistic but he’s has three problems. One was pointed out to him directly by fellow panelist David Thompson, CEO of Genius which is that ad backed enterprise software will not fly. No sane employer would want sponsored distractions delivered to employees via the software they were using to work. The second is that no developer with the capability of delivering a saleable enterprise network will do it for facebook on the cheap. They would raise their own VC and build it themselves.

The third is facebook’s brand. Its value in the consumer sphere is a liability in the enterprise market. We’re in the early days for enterprise networks so they are still a relatively difficult sell for a CTO. In this case the relative obscurity of Connectbeam or Trampoline Systems is actually an advantage, if he went to his CEO with facebook enterprise the first thing the CEO would think is ‘my kid messes around on that’ and his second would be ‘this guy is nuts’. No CTO will risk looking like an idiot and nobody needs to be superpoked at work. Facebook enterprise is doomed.

On Microsoft’s biggest mistake

Buying Yahoo will be the worst mistake in the history of the Microsoft Corporation. The Ichan boot recently connected with the Yang backside clearing the way for the catastrophe. Microsoft is a big, slow moving, well organised company founded by a brilliant strategist. Yahoo is a big, slow moving, badly organised company founded by an terrible strategist.

Microsoft are behaving like a kid who has seen a new toy. They have a perfectly good business making operating systems and enterprise software. Instead of focusing on this area of expertise they are tossing out half baked rubbish like Sharepoint to chase after a company they will never be able to integrate and will end up selling for half of what they bought it for, if they are lucky. Yes there is a lot of money in online advertising, Google may eventually be given serious competition from somewhere but certainly not from Microhoo, if it ever happens.

Buying Yahoo is the obvious but wrong move. They should be picking up companies like PBwiki, Connectbeam and Trampoline Systems to build the next generation of enterprise apps which will ultimately replace Office. Instead they are going to blow their entire pile on Yahoo for the privilege of managing its decline more efficiently.

On Ubuntu

Canonical are moving to create a UMPC specific version of Ubuntu. We are still at the straws in the wind stage but this combined with the news that Linux is making strides in the mobile market is something Microsoft needs to do something about soon. I’ve said before I think this is the right time for Linux to break out into mainstream use and I see more and more evidence each day.

I’m most surprised that Microsoft is obsessing over advertising and Google just when serious competition is emerging for both their core businesses. Connectbeam and Trampoline may be small now but all it would take is an acquisition by Google, a turbo boost from Google Apps and they could have an enterprise suite which seriously threatens Office.

And getting into STBs wont be easy either with specialists like Humax already quietly rolling up numbers and BitTorrent deciding its future lies in the living room. I have the feeling all this adds up MS waking up one day with its core software business gone and not much to replace it. They are spending far too much time on competitors and too little on users who are learning to do without them.

Read more:
On Goobuntu
On Linux
On breaking up Microsoft

On trampolines

Almost every organisation I have worked for has terrible information management, most of the time people have no clear idea how to find the information they need within the organisation or who is best placed to help them. Most intranets are static, badly designed and divorced from what users need with the result that nobody uses them.

Part of the reason is the general unwillingness of corporate IT departments to try anything new. To them, the convenience of the IT department is paramount and if that means forcing everyone else to work around bad systems then so be it. The result is that people are trying to use Excel to project manage and Word to collaborate without anyone actually asking what the user wants to achieve. We are still chained to Outlook despite the existence of far better solutions such as corporate Gmail. Even Google occasionally participates in this lack of imagination by simply porting old solutions onto the web: A limited functionality online word processor that is slow and hard to use? Fantastic!

Enterprise networks are the future of office applications, not dragging MS Office onto the web. They allow users to really see what is going on with an organisation and get a much clearer idea of who can help them. The two best applications I have seen are from Connectbeam and Trampoline Systems. There are differences between the two with Connectbeam incorporating tagging and search whereas Trampoline focuses on the flow of information around the organisation.

Neither is perfect at the moment and for my money would have to incorporate other features along the way such as wikis, discussion forums and email. If either puts it all together in a neat package I see them as the next generation office suite, Microsoft itself is in on the act with the underwhelming Sharepoint – especially when put alongside Connectbeam and Trampoline who are both streets ahead of MS. Google could do worse than acquiring one or both of these start-ups, rebuilding Google apps around them and relegating Google docs to the sideshow it should be.