

Microsoft attacks Google Apps with “Google Tax” claim - rbanffy
http://www.winrumors.com/microsoft-attacks-google-apps-with-google-tax-claim/

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mrcharles
Microsoft probably has a good chance of winning this war, when you look at the
amount of people who are completely unwilling to stop using Office in favor of
docs for whatever reason. I know so many people like that.

Me, I stopped using Office over a year ago now. Pure google docs and that's
it. I miss nothing.

~~~
BarkMore
Google Apps is a disruptive technology in the sense described in the book "The
Innovator's Dilemma." Microsoft might not effectively complete with the
disruption because Microsoft does not recognize the disruption, Microsoft
continues to focus on maximizing profits in their current ecosystem or other
reasons discussed in the book. Google Apps is capturing early adopters like
you and it continues to improve. Microsoft might not win.

~~~
smokinn
Microsoft does not recognize the disruption?

You obviously haven't heard of Office 365: [http://www.microsoft.com/en-
ca/office365/small-business/abou...](http://www.microsoft.com/en-
ca/office365/small-business/about.aspx)

I don't work for Microsoft but they have a lot of open positions for the
Office 365 team which typically means they're investing heavily into it.

They most definitely recognize that they need to catch up. And very likely
will.

~~~
BarkMore
I am aware of Office 365. Microsoft also invested heavily in the earlier
NetDocs project, but that project was canceled.

I am sure that there are many people at Microsoft are aware of the disruption,
but it's not clear to me that Microsoft as an organization has internalized it
and is acting on it. For example, what is the product that Microsoft is
selling? Are they selling a service to users or eye balls to advertisers?

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1010011010
[http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/Microsoft-Exchange-
Server-2...](http://www.cdw.com/shop/products/Microsoft-Exchange-
Server-2010-Standard-CAL-license/1911937.aspx)

$67.99 per person -- plus the cost of the software itself,and the hardware to
run it on, and the IT people to deploy/maintain it.

~~~
brudgers
Not having Google datamine your business records, Priceless.

~~~
b0sk
Citation?

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brudgers
Google Apps terms of service:
<http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/standard_terms.html>

See section on confidential information.

Note the differences between the free version and commercial version:
<http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/premier_terms.html>

See also 1 & 2 of Google's privacy policy here:
<http://www.google.com/intl/en/privacy/>

~~~
magicalist
er, can you point to the actual datamining part? I'm not seeing it. I see

"The Recipient will only have a duty to protect Confidential Information
disclosed to it by the Discloser: (1) if it is clearly and conspicuously
marked as “confidential” or with a similar designation; (2) if it is
identified by the Discloser as confidential and/or proprietary before, during,
or promptly after presentation or communication; or (3) if it is disclosed in
a manner in which the Discloser reasonably communicated, or the Recipient
should reasonably have understood under the circumstances that the disclosure
should be treated as confidential, whether or not the specific designation
“confidential” or any similar designation is used."

and

"Recipient may disclose Confidential Information solely as needed to comply
with a court order, subpoena, or other government demand (provided that
Recipient first used all commercially reasonable efforts to notify Discloser
and to give Discloser the opportunity to challenge such court order, subpoena,
or government demand except in situations where Recipient is prevented, per
lawful government request, from disclosing the existence of the court order,
subpoena, or other government demand)."

and

"Each party acknowledges that damages for improper disclosure of Confidential
Information may be irreparable; therefore, the injured party is entitled to
seek equitable relief, including temporary restraining order(s) or preliminary
or permanent injunction, in addition to all other remedies, for any violation
or threatened violation of this Section 8. A Recipient shall have a duty to
protect Confidential Information during the term of this Agreement and for a
period of five (5) years thereafter."

~~~
brudgers
How many gmail users would you estimate actually identify each of their emails
as confidential? Or docs users?

I suspect it is a very low percentage and in contrast the paid version
requires Google to treat the customer's documents as if they were Google's
own.

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nkohari
Google Docs is extremely frustrating. It has such potential, but it's such a
hack-job, and Google doesn't seem particularly interested in making it less
so. It certainly shows that the apps were acquired and patched together,
because document organization is putrid, and even search doesn't work
effectively.

~~~
euroclydon
Yep, it was much more attractive when it was a bunch of quaint little silos,
which happened to usually respect my SSO cookie. But now, "managing" all my
domain apps under one roof, well, is nasty.

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MatthewPhillips
“The three general areas where organizations feel the Google Tax most strongly
are deployment, IT support costs and user training,”

Could someone explain how #1 and #2 applies to Docs?

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jrockway
Importing a list of users to Google. Adding bookmarks and desktop shortcut
icons to each user's desktop. Telling the user to use their web browser
instead of Word.

These are pretty much the same costs as transitioning to any new software,
though. I consider myself a pretty experienced computer user, but after
Microsoft made the Office 2007 change (with the "ribbon" instead of menus and
toolbars), I was lost. Obviously I was able to find help on my own and RTFM,
but this is not a skill most people using Word have. So switching from Office
2005 to Office 2007 was probably just as expensive as switching from Office to
Google.

Interesting how Microsoft doesn't point that out.

~~~
MatthewPhillips
I agree, that is the cost of changing software, it's disingenuous to call it a
Google Tax.

~~~
bediger
Yes, certainly it's disingenuous, but it also reinforces the theory that
anyone spouting an "X tax" line is biased anti-X. It's a nice leading
indicator.

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Andrex
It's been a long time coming but it finally seems like Google Apps is making
Microsoft sweat a little, if these petty comments are anything to go by.

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georgieporgie
Seeing how bad a job Google recently did porting my GHD/GAYD account to their
consolidated account type, past account errors[1], retraining issues, possible
privacy issues, and given occasional Google Docs errors[2], I would avoid
depending on Google Docs at a large company.

[1] A few years ago, Google moved all my Google Reader RSS feeds from my
Google Hosted address to the GMail address I use for logging in to YouTube.

[2] Sometimes a spreadsheet will take a long time to finish loading, or won't
finish loading, or after making edits it will fail to save. It's very rare,
but deeply irritating. Excel or Word may take a long time to load, but for me
they've never failed to load, and once running they're pretty snappy.

