This has been a big week for Microsoft.  Halo Reach (I've almost finished it!) and IE9 hit the market reminding us all just how cool great software can be for an aspect of your life.  For IE9, it's hard to add anything new to the coverage except to say I am really proud of our engineering effort and the sleek design.  I believe we have another winner on our hands ! Most of the reviews I've read seem to settle on word like: "Lean", "Mean", "Fast" & "Cool".  Go check it out if you haven't already.  www.beautyoftheweb.com

It's a Browser, Who Cares?   

Yesterday I was chatting with a friend who remarked "It's just a browser, aren't they all the same?"   This seemed like a simple enough question and since he's not a technophile, I had to assume millions of others might be asking themselves that same question.  The web has dramatically changed over the last decade (richer content types, faster CPU/GPU, broadband, social, devices etc.) which put stresses on the v1 & v2 browser technologies.   We solved this as an industry with Add-ons like ActiveX, ShockWave, WAP, SilverLight, Flash et al which allowed users to experience more than pure HTML pages from one access point. 

There are still many valid reasons to have more than one way to skin a cat.  It's all software and as I've said before the cloud is a huge leap but it's not magic.  Code still gets written, servers still live somewhere (albeit more efficiently) and users still have a wide array of needs and desires.   NET: We all care because usage is changing and without a way to present the new canvas of the web, it might be akin to being in 1950's and putting a new TV on a painters easel.  An odd metaphor but germaine for how the original context for one way of communication may not translate immediately into another.

Ironically, we are now getting TV's so thin that we hang them in our living rooms like....paintings.  The lesson is world's do come together.

Microsoft's Reason for a New Browser

For Microsoft, IE9 allows the best web experience possible for Window's users around the world, full stop. That's the goal.  Ina Fried had a great interview with Steven Sinofsky, President of Windows Division on her Beyond Binary blog where he shares some more insights.  We are very proud about the fact we build great software and Win7/IE9 and soon to be Windows Phone 7 deliver innovation, awesome design and really great experiences for end users.  For enterprises we believe Azure, BPOS, Dynamics, SQL et al. also give phenomenal experiences in the workplace.  As we sometimes say we go from the Media Center to the Data Center.  Our revenues come from primarily from selling software which is our motivation for making great software.  If our software isn't good, you don't buy it and we make less money. Pretty straightforward.

Google's Reason for a New Browser

Google's entrance to the browser market with Google Chrome is an interesting case study for the company. I'll admit the Chrome viral video was cool. Anytime I get to see a potato gun and a tesla coil in a video is worth my time.  Chrome has good design and is fast as well.  PC World's article "IE9 Has Google Chrome on the Run" was interesting as it really only featured comments from Google engineers. In essence, until now Google has claimed to have the high ground on graphics acceleration.  But as the IE9 developers blog outlines, there is a difference between IE9's Full and Chrome's Partial acceleration. 

However, in my opinion Chrome represents something else entirely.   With 97% of their revenues from Search and Advertising , they are uniquely incented to keep priming the pump of their hungry beast. (funny video below).  Software in any form factor for them appears to be a way for them to control the user experience to make money with advertising.  By keeping user sessions/clicks traveling through their data centers means clicks drive data, data drives usage, usage drives ads which drive.....clicks. Hmmm....

Remember when:

• The first Androids required a Gmail account  to even start the phone? Gmail has ads. 
• Maps started having push pins? To sell ads for business. 
• Street Maps started hoovering up data packets and pictures galore?  Sell Ads. 
• Google 411 on the go?  Yes, mobile Ads are coming.  
• Google Apps can turn on Ads?  Ads in the workplace.
• Gmail for Education & Alumni (who now have a salary)?  Serve them ads.
• you get the picture.

So maybe their CEO is right when he says if you don't want somebody knowing what you are doing, don't do it on the internet.

The wind is blowing, and I think I hear a howl.

After all, Google customers are not finding tools they have been using over the years. The tools are dead and buried.

The ad company spooked Inc.’s Erik Markowitz as well. In tiptoeing past the Google Graveyard he quotes Google regarding one of their product cancellations:

"Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked...We don't plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects."

Are they in tune with business customers?
Given the speed of business today, organizations need intuitive and social tools to collaborate with colleagues and connect with their customers. In attempting to speed products to market, Google has rolled out poorly planned products and racked up a long list of failures. There was Buzz, Google’s answer to Facebook, that exposed private Gmail contacts and ended with a privacy lawsuit settlement, and Google Wave, with a long list of issues, which prompted TechCrunch’s article calling it “…worst of email and IM together: unproductivity”.

In cancelling this group of social media-like services, it is clear that Google is not in tune with the market needs and does not have a product roadmap and clear vision for productivity for their business customers. The Microsoft Office team does. Our vision demonstrates a clear focus on what business customers are looking for, such as intuitive interfaces across a wide range of devices.

Our marketing, field, and service teams at Microsoft use social media applications daily as do many businesses today. If we had adopted these Google tools, we would have lost our dialogues with millions of customers all over the world.

So, back to Google.

Google's product management process is like “cooking spaghetti”
The recent killing of Google Labs is ironic to me. Google releases experimental products and tracks adoption to determine whether to continue providing them. Its products are like spaghetti, Google throws them up against the wall to see if they stick.

Case in point, as of its June release, the company is giving Google Plus a try in the social space, and now they are providing access to it for Google Apps customers. But can businesses and schools trust it to be there for very long, judging by the history of Google’s social family?:

• Wave lived 15 months from May 2009-August 2010,
• Aardvark lived 19 months from February 2010-September 2011, 
• Buzz lived 20 months from February 2010 to October 2011.

It didn't take long for the first Google Plus bungle to happen, coming from its own engineer’s internal business communication that accidentally went out to the world. Given the lack of proper IT safeguards, I just can’t see how a business can take the risk of using Google tools. It's not surprising that CIO.com cites: Privacy a Concern as Google Links Plus with Its Other Sites. As I read this piece from networking technology legend, Vint Cerf, I wonder even if any of the ad business’ users can expect privacy?: Vint Cerf on Google's Privacy Practices and How Getting Tagged in a Multitude of Online Media is Disconcerting.

Convenient for Google. Not good for business.
The burials of de-supported products are more examples of what is convenient for Google and not good for business. Recall from Tony’s blog on the topic that Google leaves no planning horizon for software updates, and that it has a short product support lifecycle. For Google Apps customers, the Google Scheduled Release track gives business a one-week window to prepare and adopt the latest changes to Google Apps after announcement, but businesses need planning and predictability. Imagine this list of questions from business users:

• Am I getting a software update this week, or this month, or the week when all my stores are busy with their quarterly inventory?
• Will the Google tool I am using to build my web site be there in six months when I need to build new pages?
• My sales reps are hungry for demo and training videos for our new product lines launching next week. How do I quickly identify a tool to replace Google Video and get people to adopt it?

If I were running a business using web-based productivity tools from Google, learning about their discontinuation of support for older browsers would make my hair stand on end. I’m sure it is a lot easier for Google to limit the number of browsers it supports than to address differences in the browsers, but I were an institution or business relying on Google Apps, it would be completely unreasonable to force version upgrades, and unacceptable to expect that users will always have the latest browser versions.

It is clear that Google’s product management practice is haphazard and noncommittal, resulting in its deliveries often falling short of expectations. Before finally re-releasing offline capabilities, Google stopped investing in Gears, its previous offline product, and removed its support in Chrome 11. This confused many users and caused concern. Ultimately, Google failed to deliver what customers need in offline capabilities, provided empty promises over a one-year period, and then released offline solutions that were even worse than the original product.

Microsoft Has a Predicable Approach to Supporting Products
Recognizing the importance of predictability for cloud services as well as software, Microsoft has a predictable and disciplined release cadence for cloud services such as for Exchange Online. Through our policy in place since October 15, 2002, Microsoft provides a 10 year support lifecycle:

“Microsoft will offer a minimum of 10 years of support for Business and Developer products. Mainstream Support for Business and Developer products will be provided for 5 years or for 2 years after the successor product (N+1) is released, whichever is longer.”

-- Microsoft’s Support Lifecycle Policy

Not only does Microsoft have a long support lifecycle for existing products, it helps businesses and users in their software rollout phases, providing a consistent, built-in “compatibility mode”. This helps customers assure they can utilize files and content created for previous product versions. An Internet Explorer 9 user can see content built for browsing via Internet Explorer 8. Web page meta elements simply trigger use of the "compatibility mode" in the IE9 browser.

Just imagine that I am an IT leader supporting a legacy Lotus Notes and Domino application... My dream getaway this summer is a stress-reducing, weekend trip. I’ll be on the beach with a great book, a sailboard and sunshine, with plans to return to an up-to-date email, calendaring and collaboration environment at the office on Monday. Right now, I am giving my GPS a workout, charting drive times to favorite West Coast beaches. Yet, while I’m gone a lot of work will need to be underway. So, how can I make this move to the cloud a reality? What do I need to consider, and how can I expect to benefit from the migration? Luckily, I’ve just read the white paper, Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft vs. Google, and found it is written specifically for IT teams considering just these transitions. Here are some highlights.

Why Lotus migrations are underway 
I’ve learned that Godiva Chocolates, a company with 1400 employees, evaluated Google Gmail, LotusLive cloud-based email from IBM, and Microsoft online services as potential replacements for their aging IBM Lotus Notes email system. They also sought a better user interface than they had with Notes. Choosing Microsoft online services they saved US $250,000 annually, witnessed cost-effective, high availability, were more responsive to business needs, and increased the scalability of their productivity tools.

Not only that, the second largest pharmaceutical firm in the world, GlaxoSmithKline, made a global transition for all its employees from Lotus Notes, Domino and Postini services to Microsoft online services. They made the switch to become more effective in developing markets, improve collaboration with business partners, and lower costs in operations and investments. Using the services’ email and productivity tools hosted in Microsoft data centers around the globe produced innovations, improved collaboration, simplified their users’ experience, and reduced operational cost. You can learn what IT leaders at these companies had to say on page 13 of the white paper.

Avoid trouble reaching paradise with Google Apps
Google is offering only lightweight tools for converting Lotus Notes/Lotus Domino email messages, and for moving some contact and calendar data to Google Apps. The tools don’t support archived mail, contacts, meeting rooms, tasks and advanced calendar items in Lotus Notes. Google also offers only simple coexistence capabilities during migration. 

However, Microsoft created and tested a comprehensive, migration planning process to minimize impact on Lotus Notes/Domino Users during migration to our online services. Learn about the process, about Coca-Cola’s migration to a Microsoft-hosted solution, and learn what the trade-offs are in migrating data from Lotus Notes to either Exchange Online or to Google Apps for Business on pages 4 and 5 of the paper.

What end-users experience in the move
During migration to Office 365, Microsoft’s tools help you move end-user email and calendaring content with full fidelity: what you see in the previous user interface transmits to Office 365 without visual changes. During the transition, the Lotus and Office 365 applications coexist for messaging and calendaring. Even after user email is moved to Office 365, users can continue to use Lotus Notes to reserve meeting rooms and can use workflow messages. Users transitioned to Outlook are able to see colleagues’ and business partners’ presence, their free or busy status, and easily ‘catch’ someone for that last important bit of information they need.

Users experience something quite different during their transition from Lotus Notes to Google Apps. Google Apps converts Office documents to HTML which permanently alters content and often removes critical elements such as charts, without warning the user. There is no integrated way for the applications to each support recurring calendar items, complex mail messages or business process workflow messages. Instead, during the migration, users must continue to check a secondary mailbox on Lotus Notes for workflow messages. 

Once transitioned to Gmail, users or IT teams have to deploy and configure two separate utilities from Google to obtain presence information.  Information readily provided by Outlook’s Global Address List such as additional phone numbers and employee job titles is not available. Users are further frustrated by not having Outlook’s scheduling abilities such as those providing conference room availability, and suggesting meeting times.

Are you bound for the cloud?
Take a look at Migrating IBM Lotus Notes and Domino to the Cloud: Selecting Microsoft vs. Google for more information. You’ll find details to help you make a decision for your migration path, a window into the transition process, links to cloud migration tools, and contacts for experienced Microsoft partners who can help you. One partner even offers Weekend Express, a service for moving up to 10,000 Lotus Notes user accounts as well as their message data to Microsoft online services, over a single weekend!

Keep in touch. -- Let us know how your Lotus Notes or Domino system migration is going.

Five years is a long time. In five years, the British developed the 2012 Olympic Stadium. In five years, San Francisco built the Golden Gate Bridge. In five years, Apple released six generations of its iPhone.

Five years is how long Google has been promising—but has yet to fully deliver—offline support for Google Apps.

Despite very limited offline access, the company claims that with Google Apps, users are “productive anywhere.” But what about the airplane? Or while carpooling? Or in the doctor’s office?

There are numerous places knowledge workers find themselves during the day where Internet access is slow or isn’t available at all. And if you happen to be using Google Apps, the reality is that you won’t be anywhere near as productive.

Google’s claim of productive anywhere simply isn’t backed up by reality.

As analyst Dan Olds, analyst with Gabriel Consulting Group, told Computer Week: “Offline access is something that Google should have made a priority and delivered before now. Web access isn't nearly as ubiquitous as some might think and being able to do useful work offline is critical to most business people.”

Delivering at a Snail's Pace
Despite being one of the most-requested features, offline access has been coming to Google Apps at a snail’s pace. Google promised offline access as early as May 2007, when it first released Google Gears, a web browser extension that supported Gmail offline access. When Google gave up on Google Gears in November 2009, it instead promised to incorporate offline support in the HTML5 spec as an open standard supported across browsers. Yet it took Google nearly two years to even begin delivering on its promise, when it reintroduced Gmail offline access in August 2011 .

By September 2011, Google Apps customers could view Google Documents offline, but if they wanted to edit them, they were out of luck. For that they needed to wait until June of this year, when Google finally announced offline support for Google Docs editing.

Google’s Limited Offline Productivity Experience
Even with the ability to edit Google Docs without Internet access, offline productivity within Google Apps is still extremely limited. Check out the list of offline limitations:

• No access with any browser except for Chrome
• No ability to edit spreadsheets
• No ability to view or edit presentations
• No ability to print documents
• No ability to download or share documents
• No ability to insert images or drawings
• No ability use research or translation tools
• No ability to report an issue
• No offline coverage within the Google Apps service level agreement

And that’s not all. Google basically recommends not working offline with shared documents to prevent data loss. According to the company’s own website: “If an online collaborator deletes the text you edit while offline, their changes will override yours. If a collaborator deletes the document you’re editing offline, your changes will be lost when you come back online because the document will no longer exist. Try to use offline editing for documents that you own and that won't be deleted without your knowledge.”

I don’t know about you, but that doesn’t exactly give me a lot of confidence.

By contrast, Office 365 offers a truly productive anywhere experience. With Office on the desktop, you can get work done whether or not you have Internet access. Archived emails and documents are always accessible, allowing users to work efficiently without Internet connectivity.

And when it comes to email, whatever users can do online, they can do the same offline—such as access the Active Directory address book, review an unlimited number of emails, set up meeting invites, and use rich text formatting to compose emails. With Office Client on the desktop, Office 365 users can keep working on documents, spreadsheets and presentations—anytime, anywhere.

Long on Promises, Short on Commitment
The influential management consultant Peter Drucker once said: “Unless commitment is made, there are only promises and hopes, but no plans.”

When it comes to its claim of productive anywhere, Google has been long on promises, yet short on commitment. How long do Google customers have to wait?

Simple or Bare Bones?
Google claims that Google Apps is simple, and often criticizes Office as too complex; the company maintains that the average person only uses about 10 percent of Office features. According to Dave Girouard, Google’s former vice president of product management: “The technology should be only what you need and nothing more…More features, more functions are not always a good thing.”

The question is which of the 90 percent of Office features would you do away with? The 10 percent of features used by a financial analyst may be totally different from the 10 percent of features used by a policy analyst. Although no one employee is likely to use everything, chances are that, as a whole, your organization is using most, if not all, of the features.

Office is designed with enterprises in mind. We’ve worked with enterprises for more than 20 years to understand what functionality they need and use on a day-to-day basis, and Office delivers on those needs. No wonder 9 out of 10 companies that adopt Google Apps continue to use Office at the same time—they miss the functionality that keeps them productive.

Missing Basic Features
The reality is that Google Apps provides just bare bones functionality. From the inability to filter email to the inability to track changes, it lacks even the most basic features that enterprises need and expect.

Just ask BCBG. The premier fashion brand at first used Google Apps, but it soon discovered that the capabilities were adequate for fewer than 25 percent of its employees. “Google Apps had nowhere near the rich functionality that Microsoft Office would provide,” says Kent Fuller, Director of IT of IT Services at BCBGMAXAZRIAGROUP. “The rest of the company relied heavily on Office products, and it would have been a huge business disruption if they were to use Google.”

The security company HSS had a similar experience. “Employees found that Google lacked a number of important features,” says Marina Johnson, Chief Information Officer at HSS. “For example, they were unable to sort mail by sender or subject and found the Google Mail label system cumbersome. They weren’t able to mark messages that are very important and require immediate attention. We didn’t realize how much we would miss Office features until we didn’t have them.”

No wonder IT leaders maintain that Google “still isn’t a corporate contender.” In a recent survey by The Corporate IT Forum, well over half of the IT heads from large UK companies said that Google’s missing features—especially when compared to mainstream offerings such as Microsoft—are a “barrier to adoption.” 

Affordable? Take a Closer Look!
Google also claims that Google Apps is affordable. It may seem so on the surface, but when you add in lost productivity and the need for extra products, companies soon realize it’s a false promise. As Tina Parfitt, head of IT for the construction firm VINCI PLC, put it: “Although Google may appear less expensive at first, it costs money to support and run it.”
 
The digital marketing agency Atominx, initially adopted Google Mail “because it was easy and it was free.” But as the organization hired more people, employees discovered that Google couldn’t keep up with their collaboration needs. “Once we had four employees and six freelance designers trying to collaborate with just the very basic email and chat tools in Google Mail, it began to feel restrictive,” says Myles Kaye, director at Atominx. “We pieced together other collaboration solutions, such as Windows Live Messenger and the Dropbox document-sharing web service, but we were working from too many IDs in too many different places.”

Rookie Recruits, an Australian-based recruitment firm, also discovered that productivity waned with Google Apps.  “Almost immediately, our team began to complain about Google Apps,” says Andy Springer, the firm’s co-founder and director. “They felt that Google Mail lacked the familiar tools they had come to depend on in Microsoft Outlook. The Google Mail add-in for Outlook was difficult to install and only added a layer of complexity to sending and receiving emails. We were concerned that it would impact the level of service we provide, or even affect an opportunity with an employer or candidate. We just couldn’t afford that.”

A Sweet Siren Song
No wonder so many companies switch to Office 365 after trying Google Apps. The promise of simple and affordable may sound alluring, but it’s just a sweet siren song that doesn’t pan out.  

Don’t be lured by Google’s false promise. Even if it means tying yourself to a ship mast and putting wax in your ears, in the end you’ll be better off.