Google Apps: Schools as an Enterprise
November 19, 2008
Microsoft is using SharePoint as a digital Maginot Line in the enterprise. Google seems to be content to move forward incrementally in the enterprise. When the phone rings, Google gets a partner to answer it, and the approach seems to be working. You will want to read the ZDNet blog article “Is There Anything Teachers or Students Need That Google Apps Can’t Do?” here. The writer is Christopher Dawson and he presents some compelling reasons for a school to consider using Google instead of PCs or Macs. Geese are not good student, so I don’t know too much about education. I do know that schools with networked personal computers are in a world of hurt. The systems often don’t work and when they work, teachers are not sufficiently computer literate to use the devices as much more than bright typewriters. Apple and Microsoft have viewed schools as a viable market. If not today, then when the students get some cash, the users will be hooked on the system used in school. Now Google is playing this demographic angle. Judging from the ZDNet blog article, Google’s tactic is working. Cost, not features and cloud computing goodness, is the reason. Schools will find it is cheaper to just let Google do it. If Google becomes the next big thing in school computing, the longer term implications for Google’s competitors may warrant corrective action sooner rather than later.
Stephen Arnold, November 19, 2008
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