Sometimes customers ask me if I consider Google to be a platform for them to run their business on. I advise against this. Here is my opinion. If you have another opinion feel free to change my mind:

Google is a relatively new player in the software market for business software. The latter part of the revenue's generated by Google come from advertising (+/- 97%). Over the recent years Google however has introduced some applications to the consumer market which is it now expanding into the enterprise market. The applications however are primarily consumer focused and lack a lot of the productivity features knowledge workers need. The application platform currently consists of Gmail and Google Apps. Gmail offers basic e-mail functionality. Google Apps, next to email via Gmail, a word processor which offers the utmost basic word processing capabilities, a spreadsheet application which allows basic math functionality and Google sites which allows for the creation of basic team sites.

Except for Google Docs, Google Apps are only available online. If you don't have an internet connection the applications won't work. Google offers an SLA which guarantees 99.9% uptime. However of the 99.9% uptime is not met this is not financially compensated but compensated in free usage of the service. If for instance Google Apps has a downtime of 1% which means 4.6 days of the year Google will compensate 3 free days of usage.

Then there is the privacy issue. Google's mission statement constantly reminds people not to do evil. The term of doing evil however is stretched to the limit with Google getting beaten over several privacy issues with their Street View cars collecting data from unsecured networks. Eric Smidt (CEO Google) in an interview even told he suggests people change their behavior before they should complain to his company about them violating privacy rules. So what about sensitive corporate data?

Google offers an application platform which allows third parties (like IT companies or corporations) to develop applications. These run on the Google App Engine. Basically Google App Engine lets you run your web applications on Google's infrastructure.

Currently Google has an operating system for mobiles (Android). The company has announced this operating system will be available for laptops and PC's as well with the first laptops hitting the market recently. Running an operating system is new to Google. Apart from operating systems they have developed some applications for Windows and Mac OS. One of them is their internet browser Google Chrome which currently has a market share of 16.7%.

Although Google is constantly introducing new (online) services and applications to the market the business model, apart from advertising, is not always clear. The long term roadmap regarding existing and new applications is totally uncertain. If a certain service or product is not profitable enough the product is discontinued, making it very uncertain for CIO's and IT Managers to bet their companies on it.

So to be short, if somebody asks me if they should choose Google as their business application platform I strongly advise against it for the following reasons:

1. The applications available offer only basic functionality. Great for consumers and people only needing to type a letter, bad for knowledge workers and users who need more functionality
2. Although Google constantly introduces new applications the company is far from delivering an Enterprise Business Platform.
3. Google's Business Model is based on advertising, not on creating business applications. The underlying contracts are not clear about Google not collecting data from business users for advertising purposes.
4. There is an unclear product development roadmap. Google is not clear about the features they are introducing, introduction of new products and when they are discontinuing existing products.
5. Google applications are mostly all online products. Although internet connections are available almost everywhere in the western countries, internet speed and reliability vary.
6. The application platform for Google offers creation of business applications. These applications only run online.

Disclaimer: "These comments are my own personal opinions only and do not necessarily reflect the positions or opinions of my employer (Wortell) or their affiliates. All comments are based upon my current knowledge and my own personal experiences. You should conduct independent tests to verify the validity of any statements made in this blog before basing any decisions upon those statements. In addition, any views or opinions expressed by visitors to this blog are theirs and do not necessarily reflect mine."