Discussion on:

A study shows that almost 20% of companies use Google Apps

I have taken two polls in this blog asking if your organization has deployed Google Apps. Indications are that many have at least tried Google Apps in some form.

Is your organization using Google Apps in any form? What has been the experience? What problems have you encountered?

While this is really interesting, it's coming from a company that specializes in Cloud Computing solutions and is a Google Apps Reseller. I'm guessing that their customers or potential customers are already leaning towards a cloud computing type of environment.

I do really like Google Apps and hope this trend is legit, but I think it's probably a slightly skewed poll.

"An unlikely front runner for business innovation was the Education sector, ... Google Apps is ... a business solution that is being explored in at least one in five businesses."

Education is a government sector, not business.

Hi Palmetto,

Thanks for your comment. Some educational institutions are government entities and some are private for-profit institutions. Google Apps does not discriminate vs public and private schools when giving free licenses. The point I was trying to make was that it was surprising that education had such a high adoption rate. They are not usually the leaders in adopting business technology.

Before anyone jumps on my case let me say this I am a huge supporter of Google. I utilize their apps in my personal life and they've made things so easy in that aspect. However in my opinion Google apps is better staying with being used by the home user and staying out of corporate life. I hear people say things like 1 in every 5 companies are using google. In the past 5 years I've worked with 23 different organizations as a consultant and I have yet to see 1 of those companies using google apps. In fact in five years I've only seen one company even advertise that they were thinking of moving to google apps.

Like I said I love Google, I support them and their services when it's outside the corporate environment, just not inside it.

So its no surprise that some businesses are trying options like Google apps to save money. But how many really will stick with them or make them the default suite for their company is another thing.

Should reflect that 20 percent refers to the 2000 companies polled not "of companies".

Next, the report was supplied by a source with a vested interest in Google.

The 200 companies represent a cross-section of all businesses, so we can extrapolate that their responses are representative of the whole. That is why they do studies after all.

Would you put your faith in a survey about a new drug that was written by a company reselling the drug?

I don't trust anyone to be anything other than what they are.

I would read the report (drug company or Google Apps seller) and decide for myself - I would not rule out the results without knowing why first.

The study represents a good starting point for a conversation. I think many companies have at least flirted with Google Apps in some way - now, you can argue whether that is good or bad.

How were these companies selected? Since the report's author clearly has a vested interest in the outcome, the selection method is critical. Also, how many companies were invited to take part but didn't do so? Even if the initial sample was selected in a truly random manner, companies not interested in Google Apps would seem far more likely to decline. That bit of self-selection can also skew the results.

C'mon guys, I use Google apps, and I know that there is absolutely no way that 20% of businesses use it. They just made that figure up or it was a someone deriving something completely statistically inappropriate. That's complete cr@p. Do you not know that 77% of surveys / statistics are just made up?!

My current employer allows personal use of Google Apps but all shared / presented / official work is in MSOffice and Adobe (pdf).

One aspect I found unusual is the statement Unexpectedly, the study found that the Finance and Insurance industry had a 19.1% adoption rate, which is just about average. .
I work with finance folks (my leading Excel experts ) and if Google Apps comes up the single biggest complaint is in the handling of linked data and formulas.

Nice topic but I'll take it with a grain of salt.
A really really big grain.

Major Car Dealership here that has deployed Google Apps for Business across 5 locations and an attached finance company. I took over as IT Director 2 months after the deployment. It is still new, but whether I like it or not it does the job of a much more expensive infrastructure. Though it has already leveraged itself by integrating all the Google products and App Marketplace as well as it's new social media, with the recent platform change. Integrating the service onto the same back end that personal Gmail is on accomplished that. Price and end user preference will drive this change and you soon won't have much of a choice as whether to go to Google Apps for collaberation or MS 365 as they will be what end users are used to and want. I'm already forced by budget and ease to begin deploying a document/media management website that are easily developed in Google Sites instead of deploying Share point for all the stores and it easily integrates with user permissions. I see it is making us more competitive already with the money savings and ease of communication. Making a break from Outlook with being a power user of tasks was difficult, but the syncing with my Android which I purchased just before Win 7 Mobile came out made me dump it and I can find 3rd party apps that come close to doing everything I was before. It is easily filling the needs of the end users who are all wanting to access their email wherever they are, and I can't justify purchasing Outlook for end users again. My only choice in the future may be to move to 365 as long as it is the same or less money as the leaders have already seen what they can do with Google. Google Docs is bad but only for the power users of excel, but some easy web development with document management will solve that problem. Still analyzing what this means for the next Office products purchased in the cloud. I would have felt more comfortable if I could have gone to 365 and still might, but it's not the priority right now because so far it is working ok and some of my problems don't justify a major move.

Most of my users are power users of excel and google is a very infantile replacement for these people as they are real business users,as for Outlook it is a business requirement that is an excellent reliable work horse we don't want add ons or toy phone replacements. We remain in total control of OUR business yes it is an overhead but it is a business requirement and is correctly maintained by my professionals on my premises not thousands of miles away and always at risk by persons of which you have no control. Very wary of having your business on someone else's server very much akin to storing your credit card in someone else's wallet! wouldn't touch it with a barge pole.But I can see its attraction by some firms but its not for me.

Google apps.

It's all in the way you squint isn't it?

It costs a lot of money to manage email/desktop apps/sharing, etc. If your small business needs new IT, Google Apps has a lot to offer (for very little money).

With that said, they are not good enough (yet?) for the enterprise. And, with the economy such as it is, small companies are not much of a growth engine.