IT PRO: Blogs: Jason Slater: Who should we rely on for our business applications: Google or Microsoft?

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Who should we rely on for our business applications: Google or Microsoft?

Posted in Management on July 2, 2008 at 11:17 am

Any number of years ago I would hands down have replied Microsoft when asked which company we rely on for the provision of our business applications. Microsoft has and will likely continue to be an important and integral element of everyday computing in our particular environment for some time to come and as such is currently the predominant provider of IT infrastructure and systems in use within our company. This reliance has been an evolution over a number of years starting out with Word, then Excel (which had Windows as a bolt-on), Office, Email (from Schedule+) and eventually migrating us from a Novell infrastructure to a Windows domain.

However, when looking forward at the ongoing technology strategy I am noticing a steady shift in focus towards mobility and Internet applications, and this co-incidentally goes hand in hand (or not so co-incidentally) with where some of our information is being stored and processed. We used to have a strict policy of keeping our data on our servers and on our site but the move to embracing mobility and Internet services is slowly shifting some data from the core and new information we are coming to rely on is being born and living it’s life on the Internet.

Until recently our reliance has predominantly been on Windows, Exchange Server, SQL Server, Terminal Services and Microsoft Office. However, as our workforce becomes more mobile and remote working beds in to the hearts and minds of employees other vendor products are being called upon to provide the required functionality. Whilst there are still elements being handled by others including Firewall and Security, it does seem that Google are becoming an increasingly essential provider of technology for people on the move with services including Search, Mail, Analytics, Reader, Adwords, Docs and Calendar increasing in everyday usage. There are alternatives to everyone of these applications but it feels to me that Google is slowly becoming synonymous with the provision of Internet applications in the way that Word and Windows gave Microsoft its foothold into business. For example, if someone asked me to name a good Web Analytics application there aren’t many that immediately jump to mind.

There is no doubt for me that the future leads to Internet based anytime, anywhere applications but who are we to rely on to offer an integrated accessible and usable Internet platform for our business? And what about our information - the time used to be when everything was ran onsite and stored onsite - are we letting go of our data?