5 ms·

"$800K to make the switch. Save $240K per year." Interesting they got that deal done. Assume for safety sake a 20% to 30% overrun and now you're at $1 million.

"$800K to make the switch. Save $240K per year." Interesting they got that deal done. Assume for safety sake a 20% to 30% overrun and now you're at $1 million. And if for some reason your savings take a little longer than you thought to get there (don't they always?). Plus add in the opportunity cost of having to focus on this and retrain your workforce on Google vs MSFT that they all know. Then there's always the risk that any big project is the 1 in 10 that goes completely haywire. I just don't usually see enterprise deals with this long of a payback window getting done (based on $$'s alone anyway - without some other compelling reason) Just curious on the dynamics of the deal not the Google vs MSFT component.

hashbanged 13y ago
I agree, I'd be interested to see what happened in negotiations. Also, while they may save $240k per year in money they don't pay to Microsoft, I imagine anyone selling enterprise software would argue that there is money you will save from a theoretical increase in productivity from using their products, after everyone's been trained.
- jusben1369 13y ago
  I think the productivity argument favors MSFT. The time to retrain current employees. The fact that 85% of new employees will have "Proficient in MSFT Word, Excel and Powerpoint" on their application/CV/resume too. "Google Apps? Ain't nobody got time for that!" (ok maybe I shouldn't have added that)
- taopao 13y ago
  What if Microsoft does something stupid, like making all menu and toolbar muscle memory obsolete with that damn Ribbon?
  - rbanffy 13y ago
    Or worse: an interface designed for touch, rather than a mouse...
jonknee 13y ago
I wouldn't be surprised if Google agreed to pay for overruns. The revenue is recurring and the expenses that can overrun should be limited to one-time training / switching costs.
jrpt 13y ago
There's a lot more to it than that sentence makes it seem. Even if they didn't go with Google Apps, they'd switch off their legacy Exchange eventually, which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can't just download and install the newer version, the way you'd upgrade from OS X 10.6 to OX X 10.7. You have to go through a migration process. And you want it to go seamlessly, including a temporary coexistence mode, so you really should hire specialized consultants. For example, here's reference material on migrating from Exchange 2003 to 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638130(v=exchg.141).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638130(v=exchg.... MS Exchange is dated software, coming out with new versions regularly: 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 (not yet production ready), and typically organizations keep whatever version they initially bought (say, 2003) rather than go through the pain of upgrading. So even if you were to migrate from Exchange 2003 to 2010 it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for consulting services in the process. And you're doing all that for software that was released in 2010, probably built in 2008-2010, so it's literally 5 years old software you're installing in 2013, that's only going to start getting more out of date. That's one of the advantages of Google Apps and SaaS: once you go with Google Apps, you'll never have to upgrade, and you'll always have the most up-to-date version.
- easytiger 13y ago
  I'm working at a global mega corp still on office 2003. To upgrade 140k employees to a system and actually make it work takes years. Making tech decisions that align with corporate release schedules is an unbearable thing. You will always be years out of date because of the need to formally meet the requirements of 10s of thousands of business groups

hashbanged 13y ago

I agree, I'd be interested to see what happened in negotiations. Also, while they may save $240k per year in money they don't pay to Microsoft, I imagine anyone selling enterprise software would argue that there is money you will save from a theoretical increase in productivity from using their products, after everyone's been trained.

jusben1369 13y ago
I think the productivity argument favors MSFT. The time to retrain current employees. The fact that 85% of new employees will have "Proficient in MSFT Word, Excel and Powerpoint" on their application/CV/resume too. "Google Apps? Ain't nobody got time for that!" (ok maybe I shouldn't have added that)
taopao 13y ago
What if Microsoft does something stupid, like making all menu and toolbar muscle memory obsolete with that damn Ribbon?
- rbanffy 13y ago
  Or worse: an interface designed for touch, rather than a mouse...

jonknee 13y ago

I wouldn't be surprised if Google agreed to pay for overruns. The revenue is recurring and the expenses that can overrun should be limited to one-time training / switching costs.

jrpt 13y ago

There's a lot more to it than that sentence makes it seem. Even if they didn't go with Google Apps, they'd switch off their legacy Exchange eventually, which could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. You can't just download and install the newer version, the way you'd upgrade from OS X 10.6 to OX X 10.7. You have to go through a migration process. And you want it to go seamlessly, including a temporary coexistence mode, so you really should hire specialized consultants. For example, here's reference material on migrating from Exchange 2003 to 2010: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638130(v=exchg.141).aspx http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd638130(v=exchg.... MS Exchange is dated software, coming out with new versions regularly: 2003, 2007, 2010, 2013 (not yet production ready), and typically organizations keep whatever version they initially bought (say, 2003) rather than go through the pain of upgrading. So even if you were to migrate from Exchange 2003 to 2010 it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars for consulting services in the process. And you're doing all that for software that was released in 2010, probably built in 2008-2010, so it's literally 5 years old software you're installing in 2013, that's only going to start getting more out of date. That's one of the advantages of Google Apps and SaaS: once you go with Google Apps, you'll never have to upgrade, and you'll always have the most up-to-date version.

easytiger 13y ago
I'm working at a global mega corp still on office 2003. To upgrade 140k employees to a system and actually make it work takes years. Making tech decisions that align with corporate release schedules is an unbearable thing. You will always be years out of date because of the need to formally meet the requirements of 10s of thousands of business groups