There are two contending cloud productivity strategies - An Enterprise Centric Strategy and a Consumer Centric Strategy. One championed by the world's leading enterprise productivity tool vendor, Microsoft and the other by the world's leading consumer software as a service company, Google. Microsoft's product is christened office365 (now in public beta), and Google's product is Google Apps (still adding betas).
Google App is a consumer centric, straight forward (mostly so), perpetually in beta (new features and capabilities added and removed with little or no end user involvement), simplistic deployment (even for the education and enterprise versions). Using any version of Google Apps, the end user have the same user experience with all tools - although certain tools are not available natively to enterprise users but the online strategy is clear to all. Recently, Google has been moving, progressively, towards an enterprise friendly version of its product suite, but Microsoft's path is different, very different.
Microsoft's move to the cloud has been tortured albeit deliberate. Long before Gmail, there was Hotmail and MSN mail and Exchange. Right after Gmail Live @ Edu showed up. Long before Google Docs there was Microsoft Office and Microsoft Outlook (a desktop email client). As Software as a service morphs into Cloud services, analysts, customers and investors pushed Microsoft into a different age and the need to balance a free based service and a license based desktop cash cow and move into a fee based online centric model has led to a cacophonous strategy - Live, Live @ Edu , Office Online , Exchange Online (etc) and now Office 356. But Microsoft's Office 365 has an imprint of a service deliberately designed for enterprises. I haven't seen the server architecture for the service, but the deployment of the beta product points to a virtual-infrastructure based platform where each domain gets its own virtual servers for each product set or at least some platform separation.
Office 365 includes four basic components today, Office Online (Word, PowerPoint, Excel , Outlook and Notes online), Exchange Online (a next generation of Hosted Exchange), Lync Online (Microsoft's new collaboration framework that includes meeting tools, instant messenger, desktop sharing etc), and SharePoint Online. While it is conceivable, albeit intricate, for enterprises to self deploy Google Apps, Office 365 is better deployed with the help of professionals - This strategy plays well for Microsoft's legion of partners (NHT Solutions is a Microsoft Partner), keeping a revenue stream for an ecosystem built around WinTel that has grown to become one of the largest employer of technology professionals in the world.
With (at least the Beta version) Office 365, it is not straightforward to create an account and setup your custom domain. First you have to use Microsoft's pre-provisioned domain (and add a subdomain) and later you can add your own domains. Google offers you the option to have your own domain at the outset. This nuanced setup alone could derail many small enterprise self-deployment, guaranteeing the need for a "professional service firm". Each service will also have to "licensed" unlike the one price buffet that Google offers. Microsoft's Lync online supports integration with third-party providers, out of the box. Microsoft it seems considers its partner ecosystem during the design phase of office 365, while Google simply provides a generic API for all comers. Both platform supports third-party integration and market ecosystem, yet Microsoft gives a stronger feel of a robust channel profile.
Google Apps for business include up to twelve core services (Gmail, Calendar, video, docs, sites, chat, start page, groups for business, contacts, mobile - support for mobile devices, and Google wave -for those who once signed up for wave). Google site, and Google start page while available as enterprise services are indeed too un-enterprise in their Googlefied presentation. The iGoogle logo on start-page makes it less attractive as an enterprise portal, even though it could be used for that purpose. The limitations of sites also makes it less useful for an enterprise site collection. Microsoft SharePoint online does not have any of those limitations. It is simply SharePoint with all the capability of that well received Microsoft server only hosted by Microsoft. It is completely customizable for the enterprise. Of course Microsoft SharePoint was never envisioned as a consumer product and remains a complex tool to provision while start-page and sites are clearly all comer tools - simple to use.
Microsoft Lync online requires several options before integration, but while its comparable Google Services (chat, voice, video) are "customizable" by enterprises, these facts are less obvious and less granular than in Lync. The enterprise options are upfront. You can choose to have a federation of domains to enable chat to, keep chat internally or expose chat to the world. This actions must be completed as part of the process of enabling Lync online.
The Microsoft tool gives enterprises the feel of self-intsall without the server and application installation steps. You just configure your product - but you still need an expert to get the job done, and that fact is very clear. The Google Apps often gives the impression of simplicity - although an enterprise deployment does indeed require the services of an expert.
The evolution of enterprise software as a service continues with the two leading providers of productivity tools (Microsoft and Google) battling it out from different but converging perspective but Microsoft's play with the release of office365 will heat up the competition a notch.
Microsoft has not stopped there either. It has also released a well released Azure platform that is intended as a robust platform as a service. Again, unlike Google code and Google Apps Engine, Azure was designed as an enterprise platform all along. It includes a private cloud component so enterprise can completely implement azure in-house without ever using the Microsoft cloud. And if they choose to play the Amazon hosted way, that is also available. Azure also include the Azure SQL completing a round up of application and database platform as a service.
Indeed, Microsoft it seems is playing catch up as it tries to remain relevant across a broad swath of application and platform arenas from CRM to spreadsheet, from email to operating systems and from mobile to portal. The battle for the soul of the internet - enterprise and consumer version alike continues and Microsoft is buying itself a seat at the table but it retains one of the most comprehensive enterprise centric approach to date.
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