I’m not going to say too much about the Gmail outage that occurred this morning - it’s been the talk of the blogosphere, twitterverse and Group mailing lists. It’s pretty much been said before.
I will remind those who use the outage to point out that SaaS is inherently flawed as a concept, that hard drives with Outlook .pst files get fried and that Exchange sometimes fails.
Sure Google need to do some explaining, look at their systems and finally accept that they’ll have to come around and offer more support than just groups, but none of that does anything to negate the fact that on-demand, web based email offers significant benefits to users.
That’s it - I’ll leave the rest to all the other commentators!
Bernard posted saying that he’s made the move to cut out his use of Microsoft Outlook, now solely relying on Gmail for all his email requirements. He states the benefits of better (for him) search, the simplicity of having everything in one app, better spam protection and the ability to use Google with corporate domains all adding up to a good business case for Gmail.
I’ve been using Gmail pretty much exclusively for my email purposes for a few years now - but there is one barrier to uptake increasing - especially amongst mobile users. I use my smartphone pretty extensively and while I can access my Gmail and Google calendar on the device via the browser, it’s be really useful to be able to see email and events within the native Windows Mobile device, and at the same time be able to sync my contacts between Gmail and the device - sure this can be done by using various third party offerings, or by making an intermediate sync to Outlook - but native syncing direct from Google to Win Mob would be really useful.
Similarly another important feature missing from the most likely Outlook competitor is offline access. It is a long-time-coming feature that will really increase the utility of Gmail
Having said all that though, the fact that a small business can have Gmail using their own domain, that they can bypass their own ISPs mail servers to decrease traffic quantity and that they can obtain "enterprise grade" spam protection all adds up to a pretty compelling argument to offshore their email to Mountain View.
Over on RWW, Alex Iskold posted about email, asking whether or not it is in danger. Alex pointed out that there are some threats to email, in the form of Twitter, Instant messaging and SMS. Alex came up with a diagram to illustrate the areas that email has traditionally been used, and where it’s strengths lie;
Alex uses the fact that email is poor at broadcast, discussion and business to come to the conclusion that, while email isn’t going to disappear anytime soon, new tools are a threat to how much we do via email. He suggests a splitting of the ways - with consumers moving to new forms of communication and enterprise remaining wedded to email. It’s most informative to read the comments under the post - the consensus seems to be that email is here for the long haul.
Conceptually I’m all with Alex on this one, but in practice the reality is closer to what Zoli points out in his post. Twitter, IM and SMS are mainly used in a social context. The fact is that most employees will use these tools where appropriate, but will revert to email where an audit trail or a historical sequence is required.
More to the point we’re seeing tools such as Xobni that aim to make it easier to utilise the power of the network, directly via email. This, is to a certain extent reinforcing emails position as the medium of choice.
Sure Wiki’s and IM are great for some things (Wikis for a collaborative project, IM for short sharp “mindbursts”) but email is still the primary tool and will continue to be so for the foreseeable future. Zoli posted this diagram which try’s to depict the continuum for communication - I would title it the early adopters communication continuum but regardless of that it’s an interesting concept.
Either way email is here for the long haul - sure different products (be they add-ons like Xobni or disrupters like Gmail) will come and go but it’ll take something significant to damage the momentum that email has, especially within business use.
Much discussion has centred around on-demand apps being primarily for smaller businesses. Many enterprise folks like to remind that Microsoft is still premier in their organisation. Interesting to read about the largest implementation of Gmail in the world.
Google has secured the deal to provide for 1.5 million students at Australian schools, and replaced it with Gmail. The cost savings are pretty persuasive - apparently the Microsoft deal involved a AU$33 million contract and took four years to go live. The Google rollout is planned to cost just $9.5 million and should be live by the end of 2008.
Over on GigaOm, Om has a little rant about the seeming performance issues with Gmail. Om complains about apparent disappearing emails and system hangs. He also moans about the lack of support.
On his first list of complaints it needs to be said that Gmail is relying on a few chain links to remain unbroken - more so than with a traditional email app this is somewhat helped by having the client and the ISP rolled into one - it’s also a case that when email mysteriously doesn’t show up it’s easy to blame the application and not user error or other issues. I’ve used Gmail almost exclusively for what seems like eons and I find it pretty much 100% robust.
As to Om’s second comment about the dearth of support - it’s hard not to bring up that old Latin term Caveat Emptor - let the buyer beware. Gmail is free, free services tend to have a lower level of support than their paid counterparts - while I’m the first to discuss the need for providers of free solutions to be up-front about their support provision - it is also incumbent upon the users of free apps to do their own due diligence.
I think the Gmail deal in Australia is a good thing - it’ll be a good test for Gmail, no doubt sort out some of their processes and increase the awareness of web apps.
At the end of the day - every service has pros and cons - I’m still firmly in the camp that believes that Google’s pros outweigh their cons.
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