Pattern Finder

GAPE Finally Selling in the UK

Two years after Google's announcement of Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE), it looks like it's finally getting some traction in large enterprises, at least in the UK. GAPE has done well in the SMB space as well as with universities (where Google Apps Education Edition is free for students), but historically it's been unable to convince large businesses to adopt GAPE. When asked about large enterprise customers, Google usually points to Genentech. However, the press and enterprises don't always pick up on the fact that Arthur Levinson, Genentech's Chairman and CEO, also sits on Google's Board of Directors.

According to a post in the UK version of CIO, Guardian News & Media is moving to GAPE. The article notes,

GNM will make the paid-for Google Apps Premier Edition available to about 2400 users as part of a drive to revamp collaborative processes....

'Google Apps was definitely bought as an additional tool set, but Lotus Notes will be disappearing as a result of this,' Beale said. 'It will take a while because we have a range of applications running on Domino but Notes as a mail platform will be phased out, I suspect.'

'Domino/Notes was a product ahead of its time and Lotus is still probably the most credible enterprise vendor [in the space], but in terms of what we’re losing [through the change], it’s not a lot. The problem with things like Notes is they’re trying to be all sorts of things and today’s products don’t have that baggage.'

In mid-2008, another media company in the UK, Telegraph Media Group, ran a GAPE pilot with 140 of its 1,400 workers and it was a big success. Paul Cheesbrough says in the CIO article:

“We’ve got Office 2003, Windows XP and Exchange 2003 and we started to look at the refresh cycle at the beginning of this year. We had a decision to make as to whether to sign up for a three-year enterprise agreement with Microsoft or look at something else. [As a pilot] we put 10 per cent of our 1400 user seat estate and allowed them to use Google Apps alongside their Office and Exchange infrastructure. Overwhelmingly, the feedback was positive and there would have been uproar if we had said we were turning it off. We were faced with the decision of whether we pursued the same [Microsoft] path and paid the price for that or put more and more internal solutions in the cloud.

“We made a conscious decision not to refresh any of [the Microsoft infrastructure]. We’re not going to remove it but we won’t upgrade it. Some users might use Outlook as the client but we’re moving to migrate people from Outlook onto Google by the end of the year. We’re not going to rip and replace but we’ve decided not to refresh Office 2003 and we’ll sweat that asset. Google Apps is good enough and rich enough for us to do what we need to do. Collaboration has been very powerful [in Google Apps] and as people use Google Mail and Calendar they’ll naturally stray to use Google Docs.

“When I started the trial in February I probably wouldn’t have forecast this as the result but the user feedback meant that it was quite an easy decision to make. It fits quite well with other business apps, with things like Salesforce.com. Also, it allows our staff to spend less time on disk upgrades and password refreshes and more time being productive.

According to CIO, other UK organizations starting to use GAPE are Taylor Woodrow, a construction firm, and University of Westminster.

TeleBriefing Today and Tomorrow on Lotusphere 2009

Image via Wikipedia

Bill Pray, Mike Gotta, and I will be doing a TeleBriefing on Lotusphere today and tomorrow. Lotusphere is the annual big get together of the IBM Lotus faithful in January, and is the IBM Lotus venue for making major announcements.

This will not be a detailed rehash of what IBM announced--after all, it took IBM several hours of keynotes to get through its announcements--but rather our reaction to the news. If you're an IBM customer, what should you do? If you're a non-IBM customer, what should you do?

The TeleBriefings will occur at 2:00 PM ET on Tuesday, February 10 and 9:00 AM ET on Wednesday, February 11. If you're interested in attending, you can sign up here: http://www.burtongroup.com/Guest/TelebriefingRegistration.aspx.

Kindle 2: A Rorschach Test for Technology and a Lesson for IT

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

Note to anyone living in a cave: Amazon.com announced the next version of its Kindle, an electronic book reader, at a press conference in New York City yesterday. The media has had a field day with the announcement, offering commentary ranging from pithy comments (The Washington Post) to musings on the book industry (Business Week). A sample of articles includes:

• The Washington Post: "Amazon's Sequel to a Best-Selling Thriller"
• Business Week: "Amazon's Kindle 2: No iPod for Books"
• The New York Times: "Amazon.com’s New Kindle Is Lighter, Brighter and Chattier"
• Ars Technica: "Hands on with Kindle 2: what a difference a screen makes"
• The Wall Street Journal: "New Kindle Audio Feature Causes a Stir"

However, I think the most interesting part of the announcement is people's reaction to it, which can be sampled in the comments to The New York Times blog post. Some Apple aficionados, who've never used a Kindle, can't believe it could ever be as good as the iPhone; others bewail the fact that it may be replacing paper books (with their distinctive looks and smells); others love the new found freedom it has given them. A sampling:

Note that you can already read many e-books on your iPhone or iPod touch, using Stanza or a couple other readers. Smaller, multi-function, and way better looking.

geez, talk about gadget fetishism– don’t you people have anything more significant to get excited about?

As a contented Kindle user for over a year I am so amused by the tone of all the anti-Kindle comments. Hey, I enjoy real books as much as anyone, the fact that I own a Kindle doesn’t mean I have to stop rummaging through dusty bins of old books at used bookstores or enjoy the feel and smell of those books.The fact that I have hundreds of books on my Kindle doesn’t mean that my children can’t read the rest of the thousands of books that line the walls of my house. The fact that I use my Kindle every day doesn’t mean that the iphone is or isn’t the greatest electronic product ever marketed. The kindle isn’t a weapon in the culture wars, it’s just a great way to instantly buy books, store a lot of them in a small, convenient device, and read them comfortably. For many of us reading on the Kindle has stopped being so fraught– It’s just the way we do >some< of our reading.

Contrary to some of the negative posts here my Kindle experience has changed my life. I have a degenerative cornea disease and my reading capabilities had decreased to almost completely unable. After purchasing a Kindle last year my reading is once again as it has been all of my life. Actually even more!

I would argue that these comments are a mirror of the wide range of user reaction that IT now gets when it rolls out a new system. Unlike the 1980's and 1990's, when users were cowed by technology and told by IT they were lucky to even have a computer--"So stop complaining"--users now view technology as part of their everyday life and feel free to editorialize on what they like and don't like. Any IT department that doesn't think through how to evangelize a new system to such a wide range of people is making a big mistake.