Will Consumer Apps Replace Enterprise Tools?
December 21st, 2006 (4:30pm) Jackson West 5 CommentsTweet This
A new article in The Economist details a transition by Arizona State University IT director Adrian Sannier from the school’s application infrastructure to Google’s “Apps for your domain:”
For Mr Sannier, however, a bigger reason than money for switching from traditional software to web-based alternatives has to do with the pace and trajectory of technological change. Using the new Google service, for instance, students can share calendars, which they could not easily do before. Soon Google will integrate its online word processor and spreadsheet software into the service, so that students and teachers can share coursework. Eventually, Google may add blogs and wikis—it has bought firms with these technologies. Mr Sannier says it is “absolutely inconceivable” that he and his staff could roll out improvements at this speed in the traditional way—by buying software and installing it on the university’s own computers.
This is a great example of how even larger organizations can take advantage of the consumer-facing online tools that independent contractors, startups and small businesses have embraced.
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Hmm.. Sarbanes Oxley will probably keep any publicly traded company from ever doing this, until there is some way to archive and review all mail traffic on the domain.
That article reads like something straight out of Google’s marketing department. Are we really to believe that all of the personal and financial information in a school’s spreadsheets can be carelessly loaded into a private company’s web application? How many of you have tried to use a web-based word processor for anything larger than a blog post? HIPAA, FERPA, SoX, etc. all apply when you’re dealing with personal information, and can’t be flippantly disregarded as “red herrings.”
You know, that was my only question regarding larger-scale companies (and institutions like ASU). Namely, the privacy and security features. It will be interesting to see how this shakes out — for instance, Google offering their apps to enterprise customers to host themselves (I know, not likely).