As an IT analyst I'm e-mailed a lot of press releases and just got one this afternoon that starts off, "Early response has been nothing short of phenomenal to Cemaphore Systems' recent announcement of MailShadow for Google Apps (MailShadowG)." MailShadowG synchronizes the Gmail servers with Outlook (thereby allowing an enterprise using Google Apps to de-install Microsoft Exchange) and offers Outlook backup for continuity. The company was looking for 500 beta testers; at this point the number of applicants is hovering around 2,000.
However, I thought the really interesting tidbit was Cemaphore's characterization of the beta testers:
While the majority of applicants (70 percent) are from small-to-medium companies (1-500 mailboxes) as was anticipated, it is important to note that a full 15 percent of these immediate applicants are from large organizations. Individual users accounted for 10 percent of applicants, with the remainder coming from academic institutions and government. In another somewhat surprising development 40 percent of the immediate applications are from international customers; while 60 percent are from the United States.
It's unclear how closely this beta test community profile maps to the Google Apps user base at large, but I don't think it's wildly divergent. In the Cemaphore Systems' case, 80% are either individuals or SMBs, which buttresses my argument that its popularity is centered outside of the enterprise space. Fifteen percent of the interest coming from large organizations strikes me as a bit high--I was figuring 10%--but 20% wouldn't have been out of whack. I don't think this means that 15% of the current Google Apps user base is large enterprises; I'd read it as Advanced Technology groups within large enterprises are seriously kicking the Google Apps tires.
There's nothing that says large enterprises have to use Google Apps in the way that Google is marketing it. And as I noted in a blog post last week, I think IT departments are tuning out Google's mantra of coolness and consumer-centricity and taking a block-and-tackle approach: "If I can put in Gmail and (1) save a lot of money compared to Microsoft license fees and (2) my end users never even know I did it, that's a win."
Five percent of the applications coming from academic and governmental institutions strikes me as low--I'd figured it would be somewhat higher, given Google's success in the university space.
In short, maybe not definitive numbers, but at least interesting and not wildly out-of-whack numbers: a useful set of datapoints as everyone--enterprises, IT analysts, the press--tries to figure out the future of SaaS-based collaboration, communication, and content.
This site is absolutely continuous improvement all the time. Youshould be honest and be proud of
Posted by: Miami Hurricanes Jersey | Thursday, September 08, 2011 at 04:15 AM