Google is making enterprise IT news again. You’ve seen how that company has changed the world in our personal lives — how did we ever do celebrity photo searches before Google, anyway? Now Google’s wading deeper into enterprise IT, pushing past its initial appliance offering.
Essentially, Google has expanded its abilities to look into enterprise applications and pull out data based on keyword searches. According to a recent AMR Research report, “The Google Push”, the search giant may be making a play to become the presentation layer for critical enterprise data.
The new version of the Google Search Appliance, notes AMR, is a big improvement — extending its reach into various structured and unstructured data sources, integrating more cohesively with enterprise security infrastructure, and improving performance. And the Googlers aren’t expected to stop there.
“Google recognizes the importance of the end-user point of view, both as the source of its own success in the consumer market and the obstacle to success of many enterprise systems,” writes AMR’s Jim Murphy , the report’s author. In particular, AMR sees opportunities to add value in making business intelligence, CRM, and ERP deployments more accessible and usable.
But to do so, Google will need strong enterprise partners to lend it enterprise credibility, AMR argues. And why would these partners want to let Google take the presentation layer away from them, I wonder?
Google must also change perceptions about security and privacy. I am sure all want’s to perform better search and storage – but I dont think anyone will let anybody store the data outside the firewall to do it.”
Personally, I’d love to see Google make some headway in the enterprise. I think it would have the same effect it’s having on Yahoo and Microsoft: better services, lower prices, and better support.
