Google is not for my enterprise…

As I have written about in prior postings – the use of Google apps in the enterprise is a curious phenomenon. I really think there is a lot of “noise” and FUD as people are made to believe that Google is wiping out Exchange. If you read all the twitter – you would think MSFT should just pack it in and give up selling Office and Exchange.

You really need to take a serious look at the below listed case studies – all culled from the Microsoft site pointing out that customers who considered or even attempted (with little success) to get their enterprise on Google and made the more reasonable choice in the end.  We get it. Not sure they do…

Are they really an enterprise software company or an advertising company looking for their next big thing?

James C. Nolan Law Office

Law Firm Cuts IT Costs by 90 Percent, Dismisses Server Worries with Online Services

“Nolan looked briefly into Google online applications, but “the amount of storage provided by Google was nowhere near what we needed,” Nolan says. Also, Nolan employees used Microsoft Office Professional Edition 2003 as their desktop productivity software, and were especially dependent on the Microsoft Office Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration client. “The Google applications just weren’t robust enough to compete with Office Outlook functionality,” Nolan says. “We were pretty committed to sticking with Microsoft Office.”

Datatune

Online Services Help Software Firm Affordably Access Enterprise-class E-mail

If you use the Web interface only, it takes a long time to get used to Google’s threaded presentation of messages. And if you’ve come from a traditional mail client experience into Google Apps, there’s a tremendous difference, and a lot of people—myself included—just can’t get used to that. We’ve been trying to shove the Google Apps square peg into a round hole for a year now, but I’m not willing to go back to and set up a whole new domain in Exchange Server and have the expense associated with that.”

Centro de Innovación en Productividad

Delivering Real Value Through Integrated, Enterprise-Class Online Solutions

On any given day, its 50 users worked with Google Apps, SugarCRM, WebEx, MindSalt, SurveyMonkey, BeamYourScreen, and more. In all, Competitiveness was relying on more than a dozen application and service providers. That meant more than a dozen user interfaces and more than a dozen passwords for each employee to remember and re-enter on a daily basis. The Google applications tended to be somewhat basic in their functionally, so Competitiveness employees typically ran the Microsoft Office suite of productivity tools on their laptops, saving their documents and presentations to Google Docs whenever storing them. That, however, posed compatibility and formatting issues, as Google Docs converted the files to the formats associated with Google Apps whenever the Competitiveness employees saved them in the “cloud.”

W.J. Bradley Company

Mortgage Bank Gains Anytime, Anywhere Access to E-Mail with Flexible, Hosted Offering

Initially, W.J. Bradley tried several hosted solutions, including Gmail from Google, that used POP or IMAP to deliver e-mail functionality. However, those solutions created more problems. “Our users almost universally preferred to use Outlook® as their e-mail client, and getting everything to work properly with e mail servers that weren’t running Exchange Server presented lots of challenges—especially with mobile devices,” says Howard Michalski, Managing Director at W.J. Bradley

SBS Pros

Online Services Enables IT Consultant to Refocus on Higher Value Strategic Services

According to Alford, several of SBS Pros’ clients have looked at other solutions, such as Gmail and Google Apps, but they have come away unconvinced. “I think the advantage that we have going in with this Microsoft offering is that the product has already proven itself as a thick client, and we’ve already proven our expertise in making it work for clients. We’re just carrying that expertise over to the thin client, and our clients are comfortable with that. With the Google applications, nobody feels that they have any hands-on expertise because it’s always been out in the cloud and nobody has ever had the opportunity to support it onsite

Wyoming Department of Health

State Agency Improves Communication and Productivity with New Software

WDH has also brought instant messaging communications under the strong protection of Active Directory. “People were using Google Talk and other systems before,” Corbin says. “Employees received training for securing these conversations, but they often forgot precautions. By shutting down other instant messaging systems, we know that these conversations are safe and auditable, with no confidential data being leaked out. We can better comply with federal regulations governing Medicaid and other programs.”