Google Apps Replacing SharePoint? Ummmm, no.

Recently, a white paper caught my eye, perhaps because it was entitled "Google and Microsoft:  Living Together in Harmony."  I thought that it could make for an interesting read because these two companies seem more like blood enemies every day, so the author was either intentionally being ironic or was delusional.

As it turns out, neither is the case.  Well, not entirely.  The paper was written by the founders of LimitNone, a company creating a suite of products for integrating Google Apps with Microsoft Office, thus (in their words) providing users the best of both worlds:  the rich functionality of Microsoft's desktop applications with the ease of use, scalability, and collaboration capabilities of Google Apps.

OK, so the company is new and challenging the Microsoft hegemony/status quo on the desktop, so there are some really extreme/provocative statements in the business justification, e.g.:

• "No SMB in their right mind would willingly subject themselves to installing and maintaining their own SharePoint implementation"
• "For many SMBs and even larger enterprises, SharePoint is like wielding a chainsaw when a nail file will suffice."
• the contention that Office users won't give up Office because they are afraid to put their data on the Web

There is no shortage of hyperbole from this young (their blog started publishing in February 2007) company, and they are getting noticed by people such as ZDNet, so there is certainly interest in the business technology community in cheaper, simpler collaboration tools, like Basecamp or various wiki engines.

I have a couple of (minor) gripes with the white paper:  it would be useful for the authors to have distinguished between Windows SharePoint Services (part of Windows Server 2003) and Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (which is more costly and complex than WSS).  It would also be interesting to observe that a recent Wall Street Journal article states that there are 85 million SharePoint users out there, across over 17,000 organizations.   Are they all using SharePoint out of inertia and fear?

I've personally worked with companies as small as 25 people who are effectively using SharePoint to manage documents, collaborate on business issues, and manage document flow through structured workflows across their teams.  That being said, I could see the LimitNone tools and approach having benefits for businesses whose needs center around:

1.  ad hoc collaboration (rapidly formed and disbanded teams, quickly provisioned/decommissioned sites, etc.).
2.  collaboration across organizational boundaries.  Licensing challenges make this more difficult than it ought to be for SharePoint/Groove.
3.  ultra-low overhead (although pricing is still somewhat unclear -- no info available on LimitNone's web site at press time)

So, if you're in a highly distributed organization with little or no IT admin staff and have the need for dynamic collaboration, especially across organizations, this approach might be worth a look if these are the extent of your needs.

Another point is simultaneously made and missed by the authors:  SharePoint is more than a collaboration platform.  LimitNone's white paper notes this in the context of Office:  if you don't need all those additional features and overhead, why pay for them?  For organizations that need to manage content (documents, records, web content), serve up business performance data to managers via interactive dashboards and/or scorecards, or use forms and workflow to automate business processes beyond the individual document level, the Office SharePoint Server value proposition gets better and better.

LimitNone and Google Apps certainly merit watching closely, especially as their products are introduced to the broader market, pricing strategies evolve and become clearer, and users make their preferences known in numbers.  In the meantime, don't expect Microsoft to stand still:  Collaboration is getting richer, simpler, and cheaper.  Watch for SharePoint Live, FolderShare and Groove integration, and broad adoption of the SharePoint "sleeper" solution moving downmarket from the Enterprise space. 

Comments

[Jonathan Sapir]

Michael, we appreciate your comments and will certainly take them into account.

One thing to add to this picture is the growing potential of Google as a platform. With its increasing number of generic applications and open API's, the Google platform promises to sprout many interesting and useful solutions over the next few years.

[Mike Gil]

Jonathan, I appreciate your feedback as well. While we are approaching this competitive situation from different sides, I agree with your view of the Google plaform as one that merits a lot of attention going forward, and look forward to our engaging in spirited discussion about the relative merits of Microsoft vs Google in the future.

[Johnny Kessel]

Michael,

These guys are focused on SMB in the real sense, not the IBM definition. Yes, contrary to popular belief in the the halls of the glass tower (your?), there are ten's of thousand's of small business in the USA who don't have on staff IT and have a single SMB Server if at all. With no training nor any knowledge of the Sharepoint services which they have had installed on their behalf, most aren't using them. A smart marketing move on Microsoft's part, allowing them to be included in that grossly WSJ inflated number.

Secondly, true collaboration never happens using fat client Office. Versioning solutions are complex and security problems abound with xls and docs all over the planet in temp folders or saved locally. I run a feet-on-the-street IT MSP which serves this market so I'm closely familiar with how many valuable documents of financial data are just left lying in inboxes and temp folders on someone's Spyware infested home computer.

Microsoft attempt at securing this data using their flavor of DRM is a joke, with no external collaboration easy or even possible. Pour out the Kool Aide my friend, Google's on the right track.

http://blog.kitrx.com

[Mike Gil]

Thanks for joining the conversation, Johnny.

Our feet-on-the-street consulting firm is an SMB focused on MSFT technologies because that’s what our clients (mostly) ask for, and we’ve invested accordingly. However, it’s not dogma, so I won’t unconditionally defend MSFT from my “glass tower.” MSFT is a valued business partner, but my Kool-Aid is watered down by experience and pragmatism. I believe in the right tool for the right job.

In fact, I agree with you on the point that SharePoint is woefully underutilized within many SMBs (although the definition of SMB changes depending on the agenda of the person you ask). The point remains: collaboration tools are still too expensive and complex for many SMBs.

I also agree with you (to a point!) regarding GOOG and LimitNone’s prospects in the area of SMB collaboration tools. As I posted, I certainly think that they merit watching and could fit certain types of organizations. As volunteer Treasurer of a not-for-profit, I have already used tools such as this to work more efficiently with virtual teams. I look forward to seeing LimitNone’s performance in the market validate their technology and their business model – but I haven’t seen that yet, so the jury is still out in my eyes.

At the same time, MSFT still owns the desktop (like it or not), and is vigorously investing around collaboration tools while evolving their model toward the combination of rich desktop software + services “in the cloud.” The battle is just beginning. I think the competition will be interesting to watch, and I look forward to chronicling the battle as I’m sure you will, each from our own point of view.