Goodbye Goole Wave, Hello Voice, whither the Enterprise ?

Once again apologies for the absence of posts, well I am settling into a new job and had a weeks vacation too......


So its "Google Wave is dead, long live Google Wave (technologies)" ?

 

Yes Google killed off Wave as a consumer product, but really did anyone ever think it was going anywhere as a tool for general purpose use by Joe public ? As Google note, they have foldded elements of the Wave technologies into other products, other elements have been open sourced and thus the protocols and other underlying elements of Wave continue to live on. In fact here is an interesting statement from Novell who built their Pulse collaboration product ontop of Wave: Novell perspective on Google Wave announcement and what it means for Novell Pulse.

 

Most of the articles I have read since Wave's demise was announced seem fall into 3 major groups:

• It was too complicated for Joe Public / it was ahead of its time
• It was a really good enterprise collaborative project management tool
• "I never understood it anyway"
   

I guess I might be in the second camp, although I never got to thoroughly test in an 'internal' context. Interesting though Novell do seem to agree with my point of view,  that it was never going anywhere as publicly available 'consumer' tool. Generally consumers don't need so much in the way of collaboration power or flexibility. They also stress that they have a lot more enterprise knowledge and know how than Google do. I  agree with Novell on that point.

All hail Google (free) Voice !

 

As soon as we digest Wave's demise we are offered Google's Voice VOIP capabilities newly integrated into Gmail. Cool, but as someone who lives outside of U.S. borders, when can I get 'standard' Google Voice...... ? (yes I know there are ways to get it in Canada, or anywhere else for that matter, but I want the official tool). Apparently millions of free or very cheap VOIP calls have been made already within days of its release. I am never sure whether Google is trying to shake up the telephony market, or if it really wants to be as evil (and wealthy) as the other Telco's - Android, Nexus and then a straw man on net neutrality co-authored with Verizon - uh ? Well lets stay clear of that for now.

 

Google Enterprise Tools and Private Clouds

 

In non Google but related news, RedHat is pushing its cloud offering, as is Cannoncial (Ubuntu), Microsoft continues to wander somewhat blithley towards the clouds, and is EMC going to compete against HP to bid for 3PAR ??? What does any of that have to do with Google - well its a circuitous route, but stay with me dear readers........

 

As I have written before I would like to see Google make a concerted effort to get its technologies into the Enterprise market. I am not talking about Universities using Gmail and Apps accounts, or even the SMB market. I want them to package thier often innovative offerings in a mannger that would truly make them an enterprise IT player, because some of their stuff is really quite good.

 

Of course they do have agreements in place with consulting companies such as CA to offer Google Apps, but come on why not just buy a CA, or a Novell, or both !

 

Seriously though, as I have said before, while they can offer Gmail (and Buzz) and Google Voice for private use as 'cloud' computing, not all enterprises like the privacy or security implications of that. Google have experience of bundling their search engine into an Appliance, so why not bundle up a serious enterprise offering as a number of physical appliances or virtual appliances which large enterprises could run on their "private clouds" with storage from the likes of EMC and 3PAR behind it ?

 

Google Sites has had a recent upgrade, not enough to make it even a simple corporate intranet in my opinion, but the product is there to be developed, but what other products could be "applianced" - well probably all of them......

 

• Messaging / communications - Gmail, Chat (with voice and video) Google Voice (your PABX), YouTube (internal communications like using video as much as anyone!) etc
• Collaboration - Wave, Google Docs
• Social collaboration / E2.0 - Buzz, Google Profiles, the mythical GoogleMe (think SharePoint MySites ?)
• Intranet - iGoogle and Sites
• Document management - Google Docs, but preferrably with a CMIS plug in
• Search - erm' that big Yellow GSA........

  

I am sure your starting to get my drift, and I am sure you can come up with additional examples of your own. With Googles experience in scaling their services for public consumer use, scaling for a global enterprise should not be too difficult.

 

 So what's missing - well support and consulting, and the razor sharp customer focus. That's why I think they need to buy an existing organization to provide the basis of an "enterprise division", an organisation with the experience and right ethos.

  

There you go then, the Google-verse for Enterprise Information Management - what do you think ?

Google Chrome OS - think enterprise..........

I have said this before, and it appears I have to say it again, you have to consider the 'whole' and not the parts when thinking critically about some of the recent Google announcements.

What brings this on is the way Google Chrome OS got a real "kicking" in a podcast I was listening to on the train on the way to work this morning. "It's crap, it can't do anything without a network connection, its just the Chrome browser, thin computing was tried and failed before, yada yada yada......".

So Google will work with Netbook manufacturers to release "official' machines - so what ? There is the Chromium open source project. "its just Linux" again, so what ? In fact I am not even going to continue down that road.........

Think a little out of the box. My own personal interest is not in consumer computing. I don't care about Chrome OS versus Android on my phone or my netbook, I think about the enterprise space. I think of the implications for information and knowledge management, for ECM and intranets, and I think that a "thin client" based on Chrome OS plus a really good intranet could be a pleasent working experience. However I am also not saying this will work for everyone, so don't flame me because you need full on Windows for printing to your full colour A0 plotter, or for scanning invoices, or your Mac for graphic design, but lets think about it.....

I have ranted about what Google should / could do in the enterprise space before, and I think with their "private cloud" deals with the U.S. Federal Government, so of that might come to fruition, but I recently found this excellent post, which specifically focuses on Google Wave - another product which receives some heavy criticism from those who confess they "don't get it":

Google Wave Killed the ECM Star... George Parapadakis postulates his theory that Wave good have a major impact on the ECM space, for the reasons why I will qoute him directly:
"Why? because the ECM industry, and Document Management before it, was invented as a workaround to compensate for NOT being able to do what Google Wave does...."

Make sure you read the comments as well as his post. JM Pascal builds on the theme with his posting: Wave and ECM, my feelings and opinions. Some may note that all the big ECM vendors ahve been keen to jump on the E2.0 band wagon, with new collaboration tools and web based front ends to their industrial strength back end behemoths, tools such as EMC CentreStage, Oracle Beehive and maybe even SharePoint. So merging collaborative authoring into the wider collaboration tools seems to make sense to me.

However don't forget Wave is also a protocol, an extension / add on to XMPP, and we already have one old "groupware" vendor diving in with both feet, in the shape of Novell and their Pulse product. I am Pulse is just the first of many server products built on the Wave protocol / Wave Server foundation.

This brings another interesting angle to the ECM element - for many years there as has been a monolithic suite (examplified by EMC) approach to ECM software, versus a "build your own from best of breed" approach. So the integration possiblities provided by Wave, alongside initiaves such as CMIS could literally provide options and solutions that I personally am not imaginative enough to dream up right now ! Add open source into the equation, in the form of Alfresco, Nuxeo, MindTouch etc and we literally have a world of possibilities..... :-)

So back to Google Chrome OS. It's an enabler for some simple, low cost, low maintenance - yep almost 'thin computing' - use of either full on public cloud, so called "private cloud" or even just "inside the firewall" LAN based web technologies.

As I have said before, internal Wave, Docs, even the relativley crappy Sites, a GSA etc could enable a decent intranet. Push this to the next level with the latest web based GUI's for ERP and CRM systems, utilization of light weight AJAX toolkits to web enable your inhouse line of business apps, and yes all of a sudden alot of your staff, even sophisticated 'knowledge workers' can exist purely in their browser !

Even in a Microsoft environment, do I need Windows 7 and a full copy of MS Office when SharePoint 2010 is my ECMS, and it provides links to the "online" version of Office 2010 ? Nope Chrome OS would work just fine in that scenario.

Once again we are back to my old hobby horse of taking a truly holistic view of our intranet ecosystems and our information and knowledge management requirements.

Now, if we can just get some of the prominent detractors to think a little before dissing everything that they are not comfortable with, before exploring the possibilities

Gina Trapani releases "The Complete Guide to Google Wave"

Obviously it's a work in progress.......

Picked up on this from Gina's announcement on the This Week in Google podcast (another excellent Leo Laporte / TWiT production). Gina has made her work freely available online so go here to read the 'first release' of The Complete Guide to Google Wave.

I have been playing with Wave, not much admittedly but you really need to have a 'critical mass' of friends to Wave at if you want to evaluate it from an Intranet / enterprise perspective, and to be honest I don't really care about the public / consumer use cases. The screen shot below shows me in an IM type 'real time' conversation with Casey and old colleague from the UK, with a "public" wave open in the right hand pane.


For those who still wonder about Wave or just plain "don't get it" take a look at the free online version of Gina's book (there will be paid-for PDF and dead-wood versions coming later). Personally I still think its too early to condemn Wave (as some are doing) but also too early to say exactly how this will pan out. I have said before that I can see Wave in an enterprise setting, with hosted (Appliance) based versions of Gmail, Docs, Video, Search (of course) etc all working as a "private cloud" integrating with "heavy duty" CRM, ERP and ECM solutions where required. But, we will see.........

I have the Google Wave Beta !

Thanks to one of my readers (I have readers !) I now have a Google Wave account so I can actually play with it. As my current job title is "Senior SharePoint Specialist" you can see where my initial compare and contrast is going to be coming from......



Thanks Mark for the invite :-)

Is Google Wave really targeted at SharePoint & Office Online ?

Come on people, show some imagination !

For all those who keep churning out the fact that Google Wave has no compelling improvement of email and IM, those who constantly suggest its a social networking platform aimed at taking on Twitter and FaceBook, or stating that its gonna flop because its unfinished crud;

Jeez, stop and breath and takd a minute to think about it !

Wave is a protocol (XMPP based), not just Google's current server platform and client app. There are already independent open source implementations of servers for the protocol. Yes the Google front end is unfinished - for all those who moan about how distracting it is to seen what the other person is typing; well even in the original Google I/O conference video they point out that that there will be a private 'draft' mode that will prevent this, so you can write in peace..........

Yes the released (and hyped it) early, because they want 'community' input - so no, its not finished or polished, but come on its just gone from private Alpha to invitation only Beta, its a long way from finished product(s) and no one is saying otherwise.

However all this "social networking / email killer" stuff is just distraction. The Wave protocol is about content centric collaboration - its a collaborative document creation / editing paradigm. So before pontificating on how it will never replace Twitter, think about how it might become competition for SharePoint 2010 and the online versions of the Office apps.

Think: Private cloud + Google Wave + Google Voice + Google Apps + = enterprise content collaboration platform. Is somebody going to write a CMIS API for this stack, I think they should !

Stephen Arnold has been saying for some time that people should be paying attentions to Googles moves in new database technology, so add that to all of the above.

Personally I would like to see appliances / software / VM's to more of this stuff inside the corporate firewall (you can build your own Wave servers, and buy Google Search Appliances).

I look at this from an enterprise viewpoint, and there are plenty of others who are doing so:

• Ribbit tele-conferencing gadget
• 6rounds vidoe conferencing gadget
• SAP Gravity - collaborative business process modelling
• SalesForce.com
  

But I am sure the whole federated server based nature of the communications protocol will mean clever people will come up with lots of killer apps for the "public" Wave domains.

The only valid criticism I have heard of Wave so far is that is 're-inventing the wheel' a bit where it comes to the XML format it uses.

I am not on the invite list for the beta, and I doubt anyone at Google will read this, so I am not angling for one, in fact I think its going to be a couple of years before Google really builds up its 'wave front' - but thisl an open standards based protocol - stop thinking of Wave just as its seen in the flashy demo video or the sandbox developer account you managed to scrounge that you can't do much with.

Bottom line - stop thinking 'new fangled email crossed with IM and social networking' and think powerful content centric collaboration and document editing.

Early user review of Google Wave - Updated

Loved this posting by Ben Romstech on his company blog:

Google Wave, First Impressions

I laughed out loud at this bit:

"Using it suddenly makes Chrome and Chrome OS make a whole lot of sense. If you listen carefully you can hear Ballmer's chairs flying around in the background..."

Update

Ben Par at Mashable has posted his short review as he and his colleages have been testing since the devloper release in May: Google Wave, Is the world ready ?

Chrome OS and the enterprise - Updated x 2

(See bottom of page for updates)

As OM Malik noted on his blog, there appears to be a lot of hot air and not a lot of substantive analysis of the news of the week (?) the Google Chrome OS.

You can find some of that hot air here, a list of Google Blog search results for 'Chrome OS':

There is plenty of comment about low spec'd netbooks and cut down OS's not cutting the mustard etc, and why not, the Google 'press release' blog posting does afterall mention netbooks as a specific market. However no one seems to have thought about the bigger picture here, what about the enterprise market ?

Remember Sun and the 'network is the computer' - oh yes, we could be heading back round that circular argument again. I have blogged previously before on the fact that the 'cloud' is not reliable enough for many corporations, but that hosted apps such as GMail, Google Docs, and in the future Google Wave is (or will be) good enough for many smaller businesses - but where are the Google Apps Appliances to sit in the rack next to the GSA ? EMC has certainly talked about 'private enterprise clouds' - building your own 'cloud computing' type environment on your corporate backbone and inside the firewall.

So why would you not put Chrome OS onto desktops, conventional laptops and smaller netbooks (and lets not forget Android powered phones !) to provide the latest in 'thin client' experience in a corporate environment ? Simpler and cheaper support than Windows ?

Stephen Arnold sticks to his theme of looking more deeply into what Google is up to, and is maybe closer to drawing some similar conclusions in his post: Chrome, a shiny wrap for the plumbing of Google

Does anyone else think that when this vapourware becomes solid in 2010, it might be as part of a major push into the enterprise IT scene by Google ? Your own Gmail box versus Exchange ? Wave and Docs versus SharePoint and Office ? GSA versus FAST ? A YouTube appliance as Digital Asset Management ???

Who knows, only time will tell, but personally I think it would be very interesting to see a Wave and Docs based ECMS taking on the big boys in the space ;-)

Meanwhile on my nice new corporate IBM Lenovo ThinkCentre, with its locked down corporate Windowws desktop I am realy missing tabbed browsing, Digsby, Tweetdeck etc............

UPDATE - The Register actually seem to agree with me to some extent, they remember the Network Computer (NC) and wonder if Google might cosy up to Oracle for NC-redux ?

UPDATE #2 - Steven Vaughan-Nichols at ComputerWorld also seems to have caught part of the bigger picture in his posting: Why Google Chrome OS Matters Already on Day 1

A new wave in collaboration and communication

So I go off line for 3.5 days to move house and what happens, Google Wave gets announced and demo'd, thats all.... :-)

Wow, is about the best way of describing my initial thought. I don't want to go all gushy and Google Fanboi, but this could be game changing, paradigm shifting etc...

Why ? Well because of their pledge to open source large chunks of the code, and because its a platform and a set of protocols not a product. As stated in the demo they actually want a developer community to grow and help build extensions. As also noted you could download the code and build your own Wave servers for use inside the enterprise firewall.

This is where it gets interesting for me, enterprise use of this platform. I can see all sorts of possibilities based on the video of the demo. I am sure it will not take long for someone to build a Wave to CMIS connection using the open standards and API's, so you could use this browser based communication and collaboration suite with your industrial strength FileNet, Documentum or LiveLink ECM repository, cooool

I will start with pointing you to a link to a Google blog post describing Wave:
"Went walk about. Brought back Google Wave."

This is the most interesting dissection of what it Wave could mean for me, its Dion Hinchcliffe's assessment of what Wave: "The enteprise implications of Google Wave."

I am going to provide a list of other links, to individuals who discuss it as SharePoint killer (don't think its a fair comparison), as OneNote on steroids (don't think so !) to those who worry about the possible implications of its use.

Personally, having only been consulting with blue chip companies for just over a year, I actually been been surprised how conservative big business can be, and I am not sure how many of the biggest companies that could make best use of this platform would actually be able to do so.

I also think that Wave integrated with an appliance based vesion of Google Voice to run inside the corporate firewall would be truly 'awesome' as they say on this side of the Atlantic :-)

So, take a gander at some of these and make up your own minds !

• Google Wave - a complete guide
  
• Google Wave Tsunami or wipeout ?
• Google Wave may challenge Microsoft SharePoint
  
• Google Wave - interwebs idealism in realtime
• Google Wave drips with ambition. A new communications platform for a new web
• Google Wave - Microsoft OneNote anybody ?
• Terrifying Google Wave
• Google Wave my reshape newsgathering
• Will Google Wave redefine web communications?
• Its new, but not new
• Google Wave tries to rething personal communications
• Google Wave (Brady Morris)
• Why we are cautions about Googles Wave
• The whimpering Google Wave
• The secret sauce behind Google Wave
• Google Wave: What email might look like if it were invented today