三月來Google Apps的進展 或可稱為"神速"

Eat the cost or pass it on to the customers? .

Gmail driving Google Apps adoption at college

By Todd Haselton | Published: August 19, 2007 - 05:17PM CT

Google's plan for world domination includes convincing colleges and universities to adopt its Google Apps Education Edition suite, and it's showing signs of success thanks to the seemingly ubiquitous appreciation of Gmail. As for the productivity apps, Microsoft is still sitting comfortably in the driver's seat, and interest from schools in Google's offering appears only lukewarm.

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Five American universities have signed on with Google, and several international schools have hopped on as well. A recurring theme to their decision-making: students like Google's mail service and are asking for it by name.

Such is what we've heard from a handful of schools we contacted to talk about their adoption of Google web-based office suite. Five of the US schools participating in the initiative are the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Clemson University, the University of Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State University, and Arkansas State University.

Gmail is what they know and want

Ars spoke with Steven Lareau, the IT chair for Clemson's student advisory council. According to Lareau, Clemson previously "had an awful web-based e-mail system" (SquirrelMail). Lareau says that they compared Microsoft's Outlook/Exchange combo with Gmail, and Gmail came out on top.

"We found that 25% of the students were already forwarding their e-mails to Gmail, which was more reliable, offered more storage, and had better accessibility than what existed," he said. While Clemson faculty and staff will stick to using Microsoft Exchange as their groupware solution, Lareau said that students found that Google offered more of what was important to them: an easy-to-use system, loaded with storage, and with supporting web-based apps such as Google Calendar. Lareau also indicated that getting up and running with Google was nearly effortless, saying that a conference call basically set the wheels in motion.

Of course, the adoption of Google Apps doesn't mean that Microsoft Office is necessarily doomed on campus. Clemson is still footing the bill for a licensing deal that allows them to provide students with Microsoft Office at a discounted rate. Lareau said, "We still have a Microsoft Office license. In fact, I got Office 2007 yesterday for $12 from school." Lareau wasn't sure whether Clemson would continue to use Microsoft Office "two to five years down the road," though.

Ars also spoke with Clemson vice president and chief information officer Jim Bottum, who said the "commitment is on Google. It's a win-win way all around for both the University and for Google. It's all about the students and we're excited to offer them something they've been asking for." While the school is implementing the entire Google Apps suite, the real focus is on improving the existing e-mail experience for students.

Best of all, the service costs Clemson nothing, and Lareau believes that Google will eat the costs because "as soon as the students leave school, they'll continue to use Gmail." That is, Google believes that it will retain a high percentage of these users, who will then be more eyeballs for advertising in later years. As long as Gmail is supported by Clemson, which Lareau believes will last at least 3 to 5 years, the students will not see advertisements in their inboxes. After they graduate, the ads will be back.

Some schools still evaluating

考古: 看這三月來Google Apps的進展 或可稱為"神速"

Google Apps: 1 percent revenue; 33 percent motto

By John McBride | Published: May 11, 2007 - 11:28AM CT

The gloves are off. Google’s cutting the "but we’re just a search engine" crap and declaring loudly what everyone already knows: They want to eat Microsoft’s lunch. Or more accurately, they want to eat the rest of Microsoft’s lunch—since they’re already fat on search and advertising. Yesterday at the annual shareholder meeting, CEO Eric Schmidt unveiled the new corporate motto: "Search, Ads, and Apps."

That’s "apps" as in Docs & Spreadsheets, Calendar, Gmail, Picasa, Earth, and so on and so on. Then there are the packages: Google Apps For Your Domain and the recent Google Apps Premier Edition. That's a bunch of apps. But all of them put together don't add more than 1 percent to the company’s revenue.

By unveiling the new tagline, I guess Schmidt is putting his mouth where he'd like his money to be. Google has huge resources and an envious, albeit short, track record. The future may well belong to them. But the Goliath in the apps division is clearly Microsoft, and it will take more than a new tagline to dislodge Office from the office.