Google Should Speed up Apps’ Enterprise Social Networking Development - frazierproccomped
Google may be moving too slowly in edifice heavenward Google Apps' endeavour cultural networking (ESN) features, at a time when this type of software package has become a fundamental factor in work collaboration suites.
On Wednesday, the company took another bantam step in its movement to sew its Google+ consumer social networking site into nonpareil that Apps customers privy use to boost collaboration among their employees.
Although moves therein counsel are welcome for the Apps email and collaboration entourage, Google mightiness do cured to hurry up the gait, since demand for ESN computer software has been growing robustly, a tendency expected to intensify in coming years.
"We have to flirt with this arsenic the art of the possible," aforementioned Forrester Research analyst Rob Koplowitz, referring to the development of Google+'s ESN capabilities.
ESN software provides Facebook- and Twitter-like functionality adapted for workplace use, including employee profiles, activity streams, microblogging, papers unselfish, content rating, blogging, discussion groups and online communities.
Spending on ESN products grew nigh 40 percent last year to The States$767.4 jillio, and is foreseen to increase at a 42 percent compound grade through 2022, when it testament reach almost $4.5 zillion, according to IDC.
Microsoft recently professional $1.2 billion to acquire ESN vendor Yammer, a distribute intended to promote enterprise social collaboration capabilities in SharePoint, Office, Kinetics and early Microsoft products.
IBM, VMware and Cisco have added ESN components to their broader enterprise collaboration suites, while Oracle and Salesforce.com have done the cookie-cutter to their broader enterprise application stacks. And there is a thriving ecosystem of pure-play ESN vendors equivalent NewsGator, Swing Software system and Telligent.
Although Apps was launched in 2006, Google only started working on an ESN component last year, when it made it possible for Apps administrators to offer Google+ to their goal users American Samoa partially of their suite.
This week, Google threw in an initial set of IT controls to let Apps administrators set companywide default restriction settings for Google+ posts and multiparty video conferencing via the Hangouts characteristic. These IT controls are available to customers exploitation the Education, Government and Business editions of Apps.
End users can also individually mark their posts as restricted, which makes it unsurmountable to re-share them outside of their organization's domain.
Google+ likewise gained the power to append Hangouts to a Calendar event, fashioning it possible for users to join the video conference directly from the Calendar invite or entry. This feature is available to some consumer and Apps users of Google+.
Antecedently, Hangouts had been integrated in kindred shipway with both Gmail and the Docs office productivity applications, once again for consumers and Apps users.
Simply every bit ESN software goes, these capabilities are beautiful slim.
"I hope what they'rhenium doing is providing more than just a private Google+," said Alan Lepofsky, a Configuration Explore analyst. "If it's just about posting private comments, then that's a big failure."
A Google official said that a lot more is coming.
"The operative bespeak of this launch is that we are just acquiring started," said Remains Bavor, Google Apps product management director.
In point of fact, Google is qualification a point of calling this first launch of Google+ enterprise features a "preview" that Apps administrators have the option to enable — or not — for their domain's end users at no additional charge until further notice. The Education edition is free, while the Business and Government editions cost $50 per user per year, or $5 per user per month.
A key, departed feature, reported to Lepofsky, is an body process stream in employees' Google+ profiles where notifications of actions by their colleagues are displayed, so much as when someone creates a document or posts a comment.
"They pauperization broadcast notifications in the stream," he said.
Another Apps component that could be boosted through integration with Google+ is the Sites website-edifice application, Lepofsky said.
Bavor concurred that linking Google+ with Sites has a lot of upside likely.
"When you combine this tool [Sites] for structuring and organizing information, with the sharing capabilities of Google+, interesting things can encounter," he aforesaid. "We'Ra considering and evaluating all our options with Sites there."
Forrester's Koplowitz same that a full ESN rendering of Google+, along with the cortege's existing functionality in Gmail, Docs and the other components, could make Apps very attractive to prospective customers.
However, Google isn't helping itself by being so tight-two-lipped about its road map and plans, because endeavor IT professionals need clear statements of commitment and focusing from their vendors, he said.
Since the Apps components every started as consumer applications — Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Sites — their future destiny and development seem even to their popularity among consumers, he said.
This is problematic in the case of Google+, which some industriousness observers maintain hasn't consummated the company's popularity expectations among consumers.
In the past year, Google has been anything but shy about axing products that it considers outdated, unpopular or redundant, an aggressive pruning travail mandated by CEO Larry Page.
"Google+ looks wish a compelling enterprise oblation, only, if it doesn't get traction in the consumer space, wish Google continue to invest in it as an enterprise-only product? Will it pull the nag?" Koplowitz said. "That keeps Pine Tree State leading at night a bite."
Bavor disputes the premise that Google+ is on shaky ground in the consumer market, pointing out that the social networking service has 150 million active users, with growth fueled by strong impulse.
He also said that the company's strategy for Google+ both among consumers and Apps users is to enmesh it in the fabric of Google's new products.
In fact, the push to make Google+ a ubiquitous comportment crosswise Google products is 1 element that will differentiate it from competing offerings, He same.
"We are deeply committed to Google+," he said. "We determine it as being a cornerstone for the entire Google consumer and go-ahead user live."
Juan Carlos Victor Maria de Borbon y Borbon Perez covers initiative communication/collaboration suites, operating systems, browsers and general technology breakage news for The IDG News Service. Follow Juan on Twitter at @JuanCPerezIDG.
Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/461008/google_should_speed_up_apps_enterprise_social_networking_development.html
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