Google to Enterprise…Beam Me Up Scotty

March 27, 2010

Is Google finally getting serious about its enterprise strategy? Google recently hired Amit Singh, a 20-year Oracle exec who has worked in product development, channel marketing, sales, strategy and acquisitions as VP of International Sales.

Singh will focus on recruiting Fortune 500 companies, especially in Europe and Asia, to use its cloud based applications. This, in combination with Google’s recently released Apps Marketplace store, hopes to provide compelling alternatives to Microsoft’s desktop suite, while creating competitive advantage in the cloud.

I’m sure Singh is aware of the up hill climb he will face in trying to convince enterprise customers to switch their business computing platform to Google in the areas of manageability, scalability and security.

I think back on the earlier days at Microsoft when they were trying to win market share from WordPerfect, Lotus and Novell. At first, it was winning the feature/function wars through influence marketing with end users, but quickly moved into IT, which only cares about administration and security.

While Google is winning the hearts and minds of consumers, the question in my mind is how serious are they at making the necessary investments to win in the enterprise (sales and marketing, product development and operational support)? Will they attack this directly or through channel partners (e.g., cloud service providers)? How long will this take?

In the meantime, Microsoft is not resting on its laurels. They are aggressively moving the organization (and field) towards Azure, while “pitching” enterprise customers on the merits of an evolutionary vs. revolutionary approach.

Historically, the key to any change at the desktop has come from consumer adoption and shift in the compute model. As enterprises shift to the cloud, this presents an ideal opportunity for Google and other competitors to attack Microsoft’s crown jewels – the desktop. The question is can Microsoft mobilize quickly enough to take advantage of the opportunity?

It should be an interesting one.  Stay tuned.

Key Account Director

Marc Barry is an experienced sales leader in the Enterprise Technology Industry including Software, Cloud and Consulting. Currently, he is the Key Account Director at <a href="http://www.oracle.com">Oracle</a>. He was previously a Venture Partner at OpenView.