Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog: Google Apps: Discovering That Microsoft Owns the Desktop

A timely Guy Creese reality check -- see the full post for more context and insights

This product strategy shift means that Google Apps now has two marketing stories: (1) it's cheap on the backend and frontend or (2) it's cheap on the backend. Google started with #1 (instead of paying Microsoft Office and Exchange license fees, pay $50 per user per year) but is now recognizing that may be too big a cultural leap for large organizations. So now it's offering option #2: (instead of paying Exchange license fees, pay $50 per user per year). With #2, the Google mantra of "Use Google Apps because it has a great consumer-tested UI" goes away, but the "less in your face" strategy may be more to enterprises' liking.

Collaboration and Content Strategies Blog: Google Apps: Discovering That Microsoft Owns the Desktop