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That is big. It could kill Google's prospects of getting Docs taken seriously by larger corporations. Data ownership was always going to be a big sticking poin

by ErrantX 17y ago

That is big. It could kill Google's prospects of getting Docs taken seriously by larger corporations. Data ownership was always going to be a big sticking point for the cloud. In the end corps would probably have moved there simply by default (might have taken a while though). But M$ will sell tons of this if they get the licensing right. For a corp it's like all the benefit of the cloud with none of the data ownership gotcha's. Superb maneouver. Google's move.

sreitshamer 17y ago
Customers would get more of the benefits of cloud computing if they didn't have to set up their own servers though. It'd be cool if a customer could, say, host the app within the customer's own AWS account.
- iron_ball 17y ago
  Yeah, but it's well established that big companies will pay ten, a hundred, a thousand times more if it means they have 100% control over the software and data. There are hundreds of thousands of programmers who wouldn't have jobs if not for that fact.
  - edw519 17y ago
    "There are hundreds of thousands of programmers who wouldn't have jobs if not for that fact." Not my experience. There would still be plenty of work for those hundreds of thousands of programmers. The reason that most companies have programmers is not because the want 100% control over the software and data. It's because they have no choice. They can't find pre-packaged software that perfectly supports their business rules. Moving their apps to the cloud does nothing to change the way they run their business. They'll still need the same programmers to support that.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  the trouble is in large (very large) companies anything not directly inside the control of the company inspires cold sweat and shakes from management types :)
  - edw519 17y ago
    "...anything not directly inside the control of the company inspires cold sweat and shakes from management types..." Along with shareholders, creditors, vendors, customers, auditors, employees, directors, SOX compliance, SEC compliance, hell anyone with a vested interest or fiduciary responsibility.
  - sreitshamer 17y ago
    Don't very large companies use services from providers like SunGard (hosting) and IronMountain (records management for compliance)?
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      yeh your right. My fault i should have highlighted the idea of intellectual property. Company payrolls are not as critical (in this respect) as the latest word document detailing the spec for the next greatest consumer product. Companies will use outside tech when and if they are forced too. If it can come in house or they have a choice then voila :) If offered the choice between standard Office and Google docs the choice is clear for them - keep it on the premesis. However a self hosted version of Office-"Cloud" will appeal to those who see the value in cloud hosted apps (even if the whole point - reliability - is somewhat lost).
drawkbox 17y ago
It is a very smart move. But the cloud is really about getting your data away from your own networks, into better redundancy, downtime minimized and not having to pay for the upkeep. It is a smart move since they are in the corporate space but companies that choose it maybe not so smart. Sounds like another way to bolt on Sharepoint which does alot of what office on the web does already (editing, revisions etc) and Sharepoint is extremely painful and unusable. Plus let's not forget Microsoft launched Live Meeting with some office tools to no fanfare at all. It just makes me laugh a bit that some people think that keeping documents on their server is more "safe" when they are much easier to break into than Google and with most times very poor remote data backup procedures and tests. I'll just make a prediction now that this Microsoft locally hosted office web will not gain much traction except in the Sharepoint world.
- rjurney 17y ago
  And what if they offer mirroring/redundancy as part of Azure?
  - eggnet 17y ago
    Then they don't have a privacy advantage anymore.
    - rjurney 17y ago
      If its optional? Encrypted? They can compete as well as anyone then. That is, if their stuff stops sucking. There's no reason to think thats impossible.
- ErrantX 17y ago
  > It just makes me laugh a bit that some people think that keeping documents on their server is more "safe" when they are much easier to break into than Google and with most times very poor remote data backup procedures and tests. It's about accountability (believe me it's a pain). Google wont take responsibility for "problems" - down time for example - in the same way. If everything is in house and there is a break in or critical down time people can be blamed, scalped and so on.
roc 17y ago
I'm pretty sure Google gave up on its online office offerings as discrete apps. I think WAVE was their move. It has formatting tools on par with Docs and has a much more natural-for-our-time data model. (mixed content, sharing and collaboration supported as a matter of course, extensible for pulling from or publishing to any number of destinations, etc) And as WAVE is federated, if Google's branded offering to business doesn't include a self-hosting option, someone else's will.

by ErrantX 17y ago

sreitshamer 17y ago

Customers would get more of the benefits of cloud computing if they didn't have to set up their own servers though. It'd be cool if a customer could, say, host the app within the customer's own AWS account.

iron_ball 17y ago
Yeah, but it's well established that big companies will pay ten, a hundred, a thousand times more if it means they have 100% control over the software and data. There are hundreds of thousands of programmers who wouldn't have jobs if not for that fact.
- edw519 17y ago
  "There are hundreds of thousands of programmers who wouldn't have jobs if not for that fact." Not my experience. There would still be plenty of work for those hundreds of thousands of programmers. The reason that most companies have programmers is not because the want 100% control over the software and data. It's because they have no choice. They can't find pre-packaged software that perfectly supports their business rules. Moving their apps to the cloud does nothing to change the way they run their business. They'll still need the same programmers to support that.
ErrantX 17y ago
the trouble is in large (very large) companies anything not directly inside the control of the company inspires cold sweat and shakes from management types :)
- edw519 17y ago
  "...anything not directly inside the control of the company inspires cold sweat and shakes from management types..." Along with shareholders, creditors, vendors, customers, auditors, employees, directors, SOX compliance, SEC compliance, hell anyone with a vested interest or fiduciary responsibility.
- sreitshamer 17y ago
  Don't very large companies use services from providers like SunGard (hosting) and IronMountain (records management for compliance)?
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    yeh your right. My fault i should have highlighted the idea of intellectual property. Company payrolls are not as critical (in this respect) as the latest word document detailing the spec for the next greatest consumer product. Companies will use outside tech when and if they are forced too. If it can come in house or they have a choice then voila :) If offered the choice between standard Office and Google docs the choice is clear for them - keep it on the premesis. However a self hosted version of Office-"Cloud" will appeal to those who see the value in cloud hosted apps (even if the whole point - reliability - is somewhat lost).

drawkbox 17y ago

It is a very smart move. But the cloud is really about getting your data away from your own networks, into better redundancy, downtime minimized and not having to pay for the upkeep. It is a smart move since they are in the corporate space but companies that choose it maybe not so smart. Sounds like another way to bolt on Sharepoint which does alot of what office on the web does already (editing, revisions etc) and Sharepoint is extremely painful and unusable. Plus let's not forget Microsoft launched Live Meeting with some office tools to no fanfare at all. It just makes me laugh a bit that some people think that keeping documents on their server is more "safe" when they are much easier to break into than Google and with most times very poor remote data backup procedures and tests. I'll just make a prediction now that this Microsoft locally hosted office web will not gain much traction except in the Sharepoint world.

rjurney 17y ago
And what if they offer mirroring/redundancy as part of Azure?
- eggnet 17y ago
  Then they don't have a privacy advantage anymore.
  - rjurney 17y ago
    If its optional? Encrypted? They can compete as well as anyone then. That is, if their stuff stops sucking. There's no reason to think thats impossible.
ErrantX 17y ago
> It just makes me laugh a bit that some people think that keeping documents on their server is more "safe" when they are much easier to break into than Google and with most times very poor remote data backup procedures and tests. It's about accountability (believe me it's a pain). Google wont take responsibility for "problems" - down time for example - in the same way. If everything is in house and there is a break in or critical down time people can be blamed, scalped and so on.

roc 17y ago

I'm pretty sure Google gave up on its online office offerings as discrete apps. I think WAVE was their move. It has formatting tools on par with Docs and has a much more natural-for-our-time data model. (mixed content, sharing and collaboration supported as a matter of course, extensible for pulling from or publishing to any number of destinations, etc) And as WAVE is federated, if Google's branded offering to business doesn't include a self-hosting option, someone else's will.