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.

Read more:
On trampolines
On TownSquare

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.

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.