ANTenna Blog -- Networking & Communications

Vendors often must maintain a delicate balance, promoting their own products but not ignoring those from competitors. Google has been making a push to become more of force at the desktop with its Google Apps suite. Recently, the company enhanced the product, so it can be integrated with Microsoft’s Outlook email package.

With Google Apps Synch for Microsoft Outlook, Outlook users can connect to Google Apps for business email, contact and calendar synchronization. With its Free/Busy lookup and Global Address List features, users can schedule meetings with colleagues, using either Outlook's calendar or Google Calendar. Via two click of a mouse, employees can copy data from Exchange or Outlook into Google Apps. The new feature should help Google gain more traction among business customers. Rather than forcing companies to make an either/or choice, the vendor now offers them the option of gradually working Google Apps into their business without disrupting their employees.

Google represents the most significant threat to the hammerlock that Microsoft has held on desktop applications for more than a decade. Google claims that 1.75 million companies are now running their business with its applications, and that number could grow with the continuing acceptance of cloud computing. In response, the Redmond Behemoth plans a major overhaul of its popular Office line in 2010, one that could feature more support for cloud computing.

While Google has been making headway, its software is not a panacea. Google could improve the product’s administration and control features with items, such as role-based management, where IT defines a set of roles and then adds end-users to those roles accordingly. Also, the Google software lacks enterprise social-networking features, which have worked their way into the business community.

Google has done a good job making headway into a marketplace that Microsoft has dominated. The search vendor’s applications have been quite popular among small and medium businesses because of their low cost, quick deployment, and simple maintenance, and the latest enhancement is designed to push Google Apps higher up the food chain. While Microsoft’s software still is very popular, a viable alternative seems to be emerging