5 ms·

I really feel like Google wants out of this business, but doesn't want the stink of yet another killed off product, little else makes sense to me. They put so

I really feel like Google wants out of this business, but doesn't want the stink of yet another killed off product, little else makes sense to me. They put so much effort establishing the market, and then just let it die on the vine, being surpassed by competitors, and nickle and dimming every little thing.

Jaxkr 6y ago
What are you talking about? YouTube or Google Workspace (formerly known as GSuite)? Both are massive and profitable businesses.
- Meph504 6y ago
  Being profitable doesn't mean Google wants to stay in the business or that they are investing or innovating the product. Take Google apps (or its name of the week) and compare it to M365 It becomes clear they aren't staying competitive or innovating. And they gave up a 3 year lead
  - woofie11 6y ago
    I prefer Google Workspace to M365, in that the technology still works better. Outlook search doesn't work. Word isn't good for collaborative editing. Etc. I would never, ever, ever run a business on Google Workspace, because of a long history of Google treating customers like statistics, and Microsoft treating customers like partners. Microsoft's relationship with customers has been a slightly abusive partnership at time, but a relationship still beats being a statistic. If my business fails due to Google Workspace, Google doesn't care. Workspace changes terms, discontinues things, and breaks things arbitrarily and capriciously, offloading costs and risk onto me. If my business fails due to a M365 issue, Microsoft treats it as a failure. They try to provide migration strategies, support promises to customers, etc. When I was 15, I went for the glitziest technology. Having seen a few businesses through, I look less at the tech side and more at the business and human side. I don't believe Google will ever achieve trust there.
    - Meph504 6y ago
      Not sure what if I agree with either of your accessment of Google technology working better, and a more certainly don't agree with the word not being a good collaboration tool. I do agree that Google support isn't worth shit, and not worth the cost.
      - woofie11 6y ago
        The mixture of Teams, Sharepoint, and OneDrive is like a giant black hole to lose stuff in. Word collaborative editing updates with a big delay, and locks sections of text others are working on. Outlook search is like a black hole where you never find emails. The Google stuff is a lot better for collaboration. Of course, Google can, on a whim or bug, wipe out all of your data (source: Startup I was affiliated with had a GSuite account where this happened), discontinue business-critical services, or otherwise crash your business. Those are the sorts of risks I don't need to deal with.
        Meph504 6y ago
        Again I have to disagree with your assessment of 365. We have over 35k of files and don't seem to have trouble managing them across hundreds of employees. Of course we took the time to organize and manage permissions before hand. And make sure that users are using the right products for the right purposes. And I've experienced line locking in word, but zero delay, I don't know what sort of connection you have but in our daily use the updates are fast as chat. All of our users are either win10 installs or via the web, are you using a Mac? because I know they are second class citizens on desktop software. I'll grant you search on the desktop can be better, but via the web I find it to work fine. I'll admit that there is a lot room for improvement around group calendars. But other than that I don't see anything that Google is offer that is better for collaboration
- woofie11 6y ago
  Google Workspace is profitable? Last I heard, it generated massive revenue, but lost money. Have things changed?
sjg007 6y ago
Well that would be a mistake. Google should focus on acquiring as much corporate customer data as possible. The future is in the data. Salesforce knows this, Microsoft knows this. I think Dropbox and Box know this... if they don't they should. There are so many B2B products Google should build or enable partners to build. They've pretty much taken over the K12 education space too. My kids school day effectively runs through Google. The main expense here is support and when you sell enterprise software you have to provide enterprise level support. Maybe that is what IT departments become now, first line Google support.

Jaxkr 6y ago

What are you talking about? YouTube or Google Workspace (formerly known as GSuite)? Both are massive and profitable businesses.

Meph504 6y ago
Being profitable doesn't mean Google wants to stay in the business or that they are investing or innovating the product. Take Google apps (or its name of the week) and compare it to M365 It becomes clear they aren't staying competitive or innovating. And they gave up a 3 year lead
- woofie11 6y ago
  I prefer Google Workspace to M365, in that the technology still works better. Outlook search doesn't work. Word isn't good for collaborative editing. Etc. I would never, ever, ever run a business on Google Workspace, because of a long history of Google treating customers like statistics, and Microsoft treating customers like partners. Microsoft's relationship with customers has been a slightly abusive partnership at time, but a relationship still beats being a statistic. If my business fails due to Google Workspace, Google doesn't care. Workspace changes terms, discontinues things, and breaks things arbitrarily and capriciously, offloading costs and risk onto me. If my business fails due to a M365 issue, Microsoft treats it as a failure. They try to provide migration strategies, support promises to customers, etc. When I was 15, I went for the glitziest technology. Having seen a few businesses through, I look less at the tech side and more at the business and human side. I don't believe Google will ever achieve trust there.
  - Meph504 6y ago
    Not sure what if I agree with either of your accessment of Google technology working better, and a more certainly don't agree with the word not being a good collaboration tool. I do agree that Google support isn't worth shit, and not worth the cost.
    - woofie11 6y ago
      The mixture of Teams, Sharepoint, and OneDrive is like a giant black hole to lose stuff in. Word collaborative editing updates with a big delay, and locks sections of text others are working on. Outlook search is like a black hole where you never find emails. The Google stuff is a lot better for collaboration. Of course, Google can, on a whim or bug, wipe out all of your data (source: Startup I was affiliated with had a GSuite account where this happened), discontinue business-critical services, or otherwise crash your business. Those are the sorts of risks I don't need to deal with.
      - Meph504 6y ago
        Again I have to disagree with your assessment of 365. We have over 35k of files and don't seem to have trouble managing them across hundreds of employees. Of course we took the time to organize and manage permissions before hand. And make sure that users are using the right products for the right purposes. And I've experienced line locking in word, but zero delay, I don't know what sort of connection you have but in our daily use the updates are fast as chat. All of our users are either win10 installs or via the web, are you using a Mac? because I know they are second class citizens on desktop software. I'll grant you search on the desktop can be better, but via the web I find it to work fine. I'll admit that there is a lot room for improvement around group calendars. But other than that I don't see anything that Google is offer that is better for collaboration
woofie11 6y ago
Google Workspace is profitable? Last I heard, it generated massive revenue, but lost money. Have things changed?

sjg007 6y ago

Well that would be a mistake. Google should focus on acquiring as much corporate customer data as possible. The future is in the data. Salesforce knows this, Microsoft knows this. I think Dropbox and Box know this... if they don't they should. There are so many B2B products Google should build or enable partners to build. They've pretty much taken over the K12 education space too. My kids school day effectively runs through Google. The main expense here is support and when you sell enterprise software you have to provide enterprise level support. Maybe that is what IT departments become now, first line Google support.