Former Microsoft evangelist Don Dodge on Google vs. Microsoft (Q&A)

December 18, 2009 by Edwin Wang · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Others 

At Microsoft,  Don Dodge was known as the software giant’s ambassador to an at-times skeptical startup community. When he was laid off in November, TechCrunch’s Michael Arrington declared, “This is a huge mistake,” but Dodge quickly moved over to Google, where he’s taking on a similar role. (TechFlash has even nominated Dodge for best hire of the year.)

Now that he’s starting to settle in, Anthony Ha at Venture Beat interviewed Dodge about how Google compares to Microsoft, how he’s enjoying Google products like the Google Phone, and what’s coming in 2010.

Some Notes about the Q&A here:

VB: It sounds like your job at Google is pretty similar to what you were doing at Microsoft, namely trying to convince startups to use your company’s platform.

DD: It is, Anthony. The difference is, at Microsoft my group was focused entirely on startups. Now I’m doing the same thing, but I’m also talking to small and medium businesses and large enterprises about moving to Gmail, Google Apps, and App Engine. I’m helping businesses of all sizes make use of Google platforms.

VB: When you announced the move, you said you were switching from Microsoft products like Outlook to Google products like Gmail. How’s that going? Do you have a favorite?

DD: Oh, it’s Gmail. The thing that surprised me is the Gmail that consumers use is the same email that every Google employee uses.

I’ve found Gmail to be just terrific, particularly the threaded discussions — it’s just so much easier to keep track of discussions and email threads. That’s the first thing. The second thing is, links not attachments. With an email that’s just a link to a Google Doc, you always have the latest version. The third thing was offline Gmail. Now you can go on an airplane, go anywhere offline, and you’ve still got your email and attachments.

The final observation I would make is, over my career, my first email thing was Vax Mail, which was awesome at the time, it was revolutionary. I went from Vax Mail, to Outlook, to Lotus Notes when I was working for Ray Ozzie, then back to Outlook again, and now Gmail. Email is a pretty straightforward application. They have basically the same features, it’s all a question of user interface. I’ve found the transition to Gmail simple, easy, and in many ways better, particularly due to the threaded discussions.

So with a lot of the religion people have [about different products], I’d make the same point about spreadsheets. A lot of people that are my age started with VisiCalc or Lotus 123 and moved to Excel, now we’re moving to Google Spreadsheets. It’s just the next era, the next transition.

VB: In moving from Microsoft to Google, has your perspective on the startup world changed?

DD: No, I wouldn’t say it’s changed. I would say, if anything, it’s more relevant now than it was. At Microsoft, I was very interested in the next big thing, and at Google the platform groups are very interested in catching the next wave.

I think Google has really placed some big bets on the future. There’s Chrome OS — we all spend the majority of the time in the browser compared to client applications, and Chrome OS is a platform to build applications to run in the browser. Android is another big bet. When it comes to mobile applications, I think in the future, you’re going to go into your office, you’re going to have a flatscreen and a keyboard, and you’re going to take your phone out of your pocket and dock it. And you can decide which applications and data are relevant on your phone and which are in the cloud. The third one is cloud computing itself — Gmail and Google Apps are just providing packaged applications on the cloud. App Engine as an infrastructure to build new applications in the cloud.

Those three areas are the big bets for the future. That’s the future of computing.

VB: What do you think about the free, web version of Office?

DD: Yeah, I haven’t seen it, I don’t know too much about it. But I think Microsoft faces the classic innovator’s dilemma. You know, their business model and huge revenues and profits come from the traditional Office. It’s almost cannibalistic of them do a free version or web version. They’re putting their toe in water, but I don’t think they’re going to put a lot of effort behind it, a lot of support behind it. It’s one of those checkoff items when customers ask, “Do you have a free version?” they can say, “Yeah, we have that too.” But I can’t imagine that they’re going to really push that or promote it.

To read the full Q&A about the interview, please go to: VentureBeat

Tags:

Manufacturing Giant MWV Has Gone Google

December 18, 2009 by Edwin Wang · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Deployment Overseas 

MWV (formerly MeadWestvaco), a global packaging company based in Glen Allen, Virginia, has migrated its 12,000 technology-enabled employees to Google Apps. A 165-year-old company with a diverse set of commercial and consumer solutions, MWV products are ubiquitous in everyday life – Mead Five-Star notebooks, coffee cups from your local barista, canned beverage FridgePak cases you see in your grocery store, collectors edition DVD cases, and fluid dispensers for luxury perfumes and lotions – among many others.

MWV has grown extensively through acquisitions, which left it with twelve siloed email systems, including multiple instances of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes across the globe.

Mark Gulling, MWV’s CIO, explains that “The shift to Google has enhanced our ability to effectively collaborate by simplifying our email infrastructure, and delivered a richer set of communication tools. Google provides not only a rich collaboration suite, but a constant stream of innovative, market-defining products that enhance and constantly evolve our user’s working experience.” Gulling reports a number of benefits since switching to Google:

* Increased productivity. Users, from executives to individual contributors, have reported increases of over 30 minutes per day, thanks to powerful search capability and the organization features of Labels, Filters, and more.
* Online information sharing. Users have rapidly adopted Google Sites to share information and media. Approximately 200 group, product, and project collaboration sites have been created since MWV switched to Google Apps.
* Real-time communications. MWV has used Google Docs and video chat to help people stay in touch and collaborate in real time, avoiding unnecessary travel or videoconferencing costs.
* Innovation. MWV’s product sales team was able to quickly roll out a new quote management framework based on Google Forms and Google Docs with the help of Google Apps Script.

Read the full story at: Official Google Enterprise Blog

Read another report at: WebProNews

Tags: ,

More details about LA’s moving to Google Apps

December 15, 2009 by Edwin Wang · Leave a Comment
Filed under: Deployment Overseas 

The City of Los Angeles is replacing its Novell GroupWise e-mail system with Google’s e-mail application and laying the foundation for implementing other Google Web-based applications in the future with the help of solution provider CSC.
CSC, Falls Church, Va., is providing Los Angeles with systems integration and services, including architecture, design, integration, migration, archiving, and training to help that organization’s 30,000-plus personnel move away from GroupWise and to a cloud-based Google e-mail system, said Mark Kneidinger Managing partner for CSC’s federal consulting practice.
“In doing that, we are also providing a platform for future development,” Kneidinger said. “And we are providing a collaboration environment for the future.”
The contract also calls for CSC to help Los Angeles implement new collaboration applications using the Google Apps platform, he said.
The deployment of the new Google Apps e-mail system for the approximately 34,000 e-mail accounts used by Los Angeles is expected to help the city enjoy overall cost savings of $5.5 million over the initial three-year period of the contract, Kneidinger said.
These savings primarily consist of eliminating the GroupWise license fees that the city would have had to purchase, but also includes the cost of software upgrades and savings from retiring old servers, he said.
“But the savings will be much more going forward with the deployment of apps using the Google platform,” he said.
CSC outbid a number of e-mail providers to win the Los Angeles contract, including Microsoft, Kneidinger said.

A youtube video about this case was posted by Google Recently:

For more information, please visit : crn.com

Tags: , , ,