Google Apps Challenging Microsoft in Business By QUENTIN HARDY

Google Apps Challenging Microsoft in Business

By QUENTIN HARDY December 28, 2012

SAN FRANCISCO — It has taken years, but Google seems to be cutting into Microsoft’s stronghold — businesses.
Google’s software for businesses, Google Apps, consists of applications for document writing, collaboration, and text and video communications — all cloud-based, so that none of the software is on an office worker’s computer. Google has been promoting the idea for more than six years, and it seemed that it was going to appeal mostly to small businesses and tech start-ups.

But the notion is catching on with larger enterprises. In the last year Google has scored an impressive string of wins, including at the Swiss drug maker Hoffmann-La Roche, where over 80,000 employees use the package, and at the Interior Department, where 90,000 use it.
One big reason is price. Google charges $50 a year for each person using its product, a price that has not changed since it made its commercial debut, even though Google has added features. In 2012, for example, Google added the ability to work on a computer not connected to the Internet, as well as security and data management that comply with more stringent European standards. That made it much easier to sell the product to multinationals and companies in Europe.
Many companies that sell software over the cloud add features without raising prices, but also break from traditional industry practice by rarely offering discounts from the list price.
Microsoft’s Office suite of software, which does not include e-mail, is installed on a desktop PC or laptop. In 2013, the list price for businesses will be $400 per computer, but many companies pay half that after negotiating a volume deal.
At the same time, Microsoft has built its business on raising prices for extra features and services. The 2013 version of Office, for example, costs up to $50 more than its predecessor.
“Google is getting traction” on Microsoft, said Melissa Webster, an analyst with IDC. “Its ‘good enough’ product has become pretty good. It looks like 2013 is going to be the year for content and collaboration in the cloud.”
Microsoft has also jumped on the office-in-the-cloud trend. In June 2011, it released Office 365, and now offers its software in both a cloud version and a hybrid version that uses cloud computing and conventional servers. Office 365 starts at a list price of $72 a year, per person, and can cost as much as $240 a person annually, in versions that offer many more features and software development capabilities. Microsoft says it offers more than Google for the money, but the product has not won many converts from Google.
In a recent report, Gartner, the information technology research company, called Google “the only strong competitor” to Microsoft in cloud-based business productivity software, though it warned that “enterprise concerns may not be of paramount importance to the search giant.”
Google is tight-lipped about how many people use Google Apps, saying only that in June more than five million businesses were using it, up from four million in late 2011. Google’s revenue from Apps, according to a former executive who asked not to be named in order to maintain good relations with Google, amounted to perhaps $1 billion of the $37.9 billion Google earned in 2011.
Shaw Industries, a carpet maker in Dalton, Ga., with about 30,000 employees, switched to Google Apps this year for communication tools like e-mail and videoconferencing. Jim Nielsen, the company’s manager of enterprise technology, calculated that using Google instead of similar Microsoft products would cost, over seven years, about one-thirteenth Microsoft’s price.
Shaw is a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, run by Warren E. Buffett, but the close friendship of Mr. Buffett and Microsoft’s founder, Bill Gates, did not sway Mr. Nielsen. “When you add it up, the numbers are pretty compelling,” he said.
In addition to the lower price, Google has simplicity in pricing. Mr. Nielsen said he had to sort through 11 pricing models to figure out what he would pay Microsoft.
But his prime motive in choosing Google, he said, was online collaboration. “As people in their daily lives become more electronically social, they want to bring that into the office,” Mr. Nielsen said. “Video is more appealing than a written letter.”
Google, he said, is “constantly making it better for teams to work, inside and outside the company, with controlled access.”
Microsoft says it does not yet see a threat. Google “has not yet shown they are truly serious,” said Julia White, a general manager in Microsoft’s business division. “From the outside, they are an advertising company.” In 2011, 96 percent of Google’s revenue came from advertising.
Even though Microsoft sells a similar product, she said most companies did not want to depend exclusively on clouds for documents and communication. Microsoft now has some of its own workers entirely online, she said, while others use both local computers and the cloud, to get a feel for how various companies work.
Although she would not break out numbers, Ms. White said Office 365 was “on track to be our fastest-growing business.” She said that Google, to be a threat, would need to “provide a quality enterprise experience” in areas like “privacy, data handling and security.”
But according to the General Services Administration, out of 42 federal government contracts for which Google and Microsoft competed in 2012, Google won 23 deals, and Microsoft 10. The rest went to another company, Zimbra, which is owned by VMware, a maker of cloud software.
Microsoft’s biggest and most profitable sector, its business division, brought in nearly $24 billion in the 2012 fiscal year that ended in June. Almost none of that came from Office 365, but from the familiar older-style software that depends on computers located within the corporation.
As the two behemoths slug it out in the enterprise market, their cloud-computing software is changing the way businesses operate. Internet-based computing makes it easier to communicate both within and outside a company. Fixing software and adding features can be done automatically, the way consumers get the latest version of Facebook when they go to its site.
“People were looking for cheap e-mail at first, but now it’s about collaboration, calendaring and data storage online,” said Ms. Webster of IDC. Over time, her firm says, software revenue will be at least 50 percent from the cloud, which could challenge the complex way Microsoft prices and discounts its products.

谷歌雲端辦公軟件悄然崛起

QUENTIN HARDY 報道 2012年12月28日

舊金山——雖然經過多年努力，但谷歌似乎正在打入微軟的要塞，商務領域。
谷歌的商用軟件Google Apps中，包括撰寫文檔、協作、文本及視頻交流的應用，全都基於雲端，所以所有軟件都不用安裝在職員的電腦上。谷歌推廣這一理念已經超過六年，似乎這個理念主要會吸引小企業及科技創業公司。

按圖放大

Virginie Drujon-Kippelen for The New York Times

肖氏工業集團的吉姆·尼爾森（中）估計，使用谷歌而非微軟的類似產品，在七年時間裡所需的費用，只有微軟產品的7%。

但是這一理念也正在吸引規模較大的公司。過去一年，谷歌取得一系列令人矚目的勝利。例如，瑞士製藥企業羅氏公司(Hoffmann-La Roche)有超過8萬名員工使用這套產品，美國內政部(Interior Department)有9萬人使用。

價格是重要原因。谷歌每年對每位用戶收費50美元，儘管谷歌增加了新功能，但自從谷歌開始提供商用服務之後就一直維持這一價格。例如，2012年， 谷歌增加了能在不聯網的電腦上使用的功能，還提供了符合歐盟更嚴格標準的安全及數據管理功能。這使得該產品更易於出售給跨國公司及歐洲公司。

許多公司在出售雲端軟件時，即使增加功能也並不提價，但是它們也摒棄了另一項業界傳統做法，不會在標價基礎上提供折扣。

微軟的Office辦公軟件不包括電子郵件服務，要安裝在台式電腦或筆記本電腦上。2013年，該軟件的標價是，每台電腦400美元，但是許多公司在大宗採購談判後，可以得到半價優惠。
同時，微軟也會在增加了新功能和服務後提價，從而獲利。例如，2013版的Office軟件就比上一個版本貴近50美元。

國際數據公司(IDC)的分析師梅麗莎·韋伯斯特(Melissa Webster)說，“谷歌正在趕上”微軟，“谷歌產品本來只是還行，現在卻變得相當不錯。看起來2013年的熱點將是雲端的內容和協作。”
微軟也加入了雲辦公的潮流。2011年7月，微軟推出了Office365，現在微軟的軟件既有雲端版本也有使用雲計算及傳統服務器的混合版本。 Office365的起價是每人每年72美元。那些提供更多功能和軟件開發功能的版本，每人每年則高達240美元。微軟說自己的產品比谷歌產品更加物有所 值，但是這些產品並未從谷歌手裡挖走多少用戶。

信息技術研究公司Gartner在近期發佈的一份報告中稱，谷歌是微軟在雲端商用生產力軟件領域“唯一的強勁對手”。不過該報告警告說，“對谷歌這家搜索引擎巨頭來說，企業的需求可能並不是重中之重。”

谷歌不肯透露Google Apps共有多少用戶，只是說到6月份，有超過500萬家企業在使用該服務，而在2011年底，這個數字是400萬。谷歌公司一位前任高管稱，2011年 谷歌的收入是379億美元，其中大概有10億來自於Apps的收入。這位前任高管為了同谷歌保持良好關係，要求不要透露其姓名。

喬治亞州多爾頓的一家地毯製造商肖氏工業集團(Shaw Industries)擁有大約3萬名員工。今年該公司為了使用電子郵件和視頻會議等通訊功能，開始使用Google Apps。該公司的企業技術經理吉姆·尼爾森(Jim Nielsen)估計，使用谷歌而非微軟的類似產品，七年內只需支付微軟價格的7%。

肖氏工業集團是伯克希爾哈撒韋(Berkshire Hathaway)的子公司，後者由沃倫·E·巴菲特(Warren E. Buffett)執掌。但巴菲特與微軟創始人比爾·蓋茨(Bill Gates)的親密友誼，並未動搖尼爾森的意見。他說，“加起來算一算，數字相當有說服力。”

谷歌不僅價格低於微軟，報價也很簡潔。尼爾森說，他不得不研究11種價格模式，才能明白到底得付微軟多少錢。

不過，他說他選擇谷歌的首要動機是在線協作。尼爾森說，“人們在日常生活中進行越來越多的電子社交活動，他們希望將這種方式帶入辦公室。視頻遠比書信更吸引人。
他說，谷歌“在持續地改進其功能，使團隊在公司內外都能更好的協作，而且能夠控制團隊成員的登錄權限”。

微軟稱其尚未感受到威脅。微軟商業部門的一位總經理茱莉亞·懷特(Julia White)說，谷歌“尚未表明他們是認真的。從外部來看，它就是個廣告公司”。在2011年，谷歌96%的收入來自廣告。

她說，儘管微軟也出售一個類似的產品，但是多數公司並不想僅僅依靠雲端程序來做文件處理或進行溝通。她說，微軟現在有部分員工完全在線工作，而其他人既在本地電腦上工作，也通過雲程序工作，從而感受不同公司的工作方式。

儘管她不願披露數據，但是懷特說，Office365“正在成為我們增長最快的業務”。她說，谷歌如果想要威脅到微軟，需要在“隱私、數據處理和安全”等方面“提供高質量的企業服務經驗”。
但是，據美國聯邦總務管理局(General Services Administration)稱，2012年在谷歌與微軟競標的42項聯邦政府合同中，谷歌贏得23個，微軟贏得10個，其餘的合同落入另外一家公司 Zimbra的手中。該公司屬於一家雲軟件製造商威睿(VMware)。

微軟最大、盈利能力最強的部分是商業部門。在截至6月的2012年財政年度，該部門收入近240億美元。這些收入中幾乎都不是來自Office365，而是來自於我們熟悉的、老式的、安裝在公司內部電腦上的軟件。

當兩大巨頭在商業領域爭得你死我活之時，他們的雲計算軟件正在改變企業的經營方式。基於網絡的計算使得公司內外的交流都變得更容易。安裝軟件及增加功能都可以自動完成，就像用戶登錄Facebook就可以得到它的最新版本一樣。

IDC的韋伯斯特說，“一開始，人們要求的是便宜的郵件服務，但是現在一切都有關網上協作、在線日程及數據儲存功能。”IDC稱，以後軟件收入至少有50%將來自雲計算，這會挑戰微軟複雜的定價和打折方法。

翻譯：梁英