Google Enterprise Offers Functionality (Steve Hankins Commentary)

I received a call recently from someone looking to discuss the best ways to do some file-sharing between the Mac at the office and the Mac at home.

It is always interesting to have the opportunity to quiz someone about their computer use. Even though it seems that most everyone’s computing life revolves around Microsoft Office, Outlook and a browser, the actual work being accomplished on the computer is often quite different.

For this individual, file-sharing also meant collaboration via e-mail and documents. They were also interested in being able to manage projects that involved others outside of their company. 

There was no requirement for heavy Excel use. In fact, spreadsheets were hardly used at all.

Fortunately, this problem had a very simple answer: switch to Google Apps Enterprise and throw away the notion of using Microsoft Office.

I’m certain that most of you think this is a crazy idea. The client certainly did. The notion of having a computing world that is not centered around Microsoft Office is hard to get your mind around. Which is exactly what Microsoft wants you to keep thinking.

 Once we examined the requirements from a different point of view we realized that accomplishing what was needed was actually much easier without Microsoft Office and Outlook.

Let’s review.

Initial requirement: ability to share files between computers.

While there are a number of products on the market that handle this quite nicely at varying price levels, Google Enterprise allows users to have up to 25 GB of storage within the standard price. In this case that was plenty.

This storage can be arranged in file cabinets and made available to others on a secured basis. Google Docs of all types can be shared to specific contacts that also use Google.

Follow-on requirement: ability to manage projects involving users from outside the company.

There are a number of project management applications from the very simple to the reasonably complex within the Google eco-system. These integrate with the features of the Google environment – e-mail, contacts, documents and calendars.

For instance, an e-mail to a contact assigned to a project can easily be recorded within the project records. A project calendar can be created and made visible to contacts using gmail or Google Enterprise e-mail.

Follow-on requirement: ability to collaborate on documents.

Most of the work that takes place within this company is recorded on documents. These documents are rarely “dressed up” in any fancy way.

Google Docs collaboration and formatting capabilities within the word processor are sufficient to fit the needs.

If the documents do require “dressing up,” Apple’s Pages is available from the Mac app store for about $20.

Probably the most difficult hurdle to overcome in the process of change was the thought of leaving Microsoft Outlook and working entirely from browser windows.

Truthfully, it is not necessary to leave Outlook to work with the Google products. You will find that you can get the same result on either a Windows PC or Mac using Google with Outlook as when using Exchange with Outlook. Attachments are not quite as elegant, but otherwise you would not notice any difference.

You also would notice very little difference on a smart phone between Google and a Microsoft Exchange or BlackBerry server on the back end.

Where you do notice the big difference is in price. Google Enterprise is $50 per head per year. Eliminating the need to buy Microsoft Office brings a significant savings. Web-based products for project management are not only at a very reasonable price point – many times free – but also are much easier to use than something like Microsoft Project.

While the entire solution described above is not for everyone – heavy Excel users will not be happy with Google’s spreadsheet product – small- and mid-sized business have a lot of opportunity to save money, simplify their environment and add business functionality by taking advantage of what Google has to offer. 

Steve Hankins is CEO and co-founder of Accio.US, a technology company providing advisory and management services for small- to medium-sized businesses. He may be reached at [email protected].