Washington DC latest to drop Microsoft for web apps

By David Chartier

Washington D.C. has joined 500,000+ businesses and organizations in moving its communication and productivity tools into the cloud. Vivek Kundra, CTO for the District, signed an agreement with Google to migrate the organization's 38,000 employees to Google Apps, the search giant's web-based offering of communication and productivity tools. Washington D.C. is a not-insignificant win for Google, and yet another blow to Microsoft's incumbent Office suite, as a surge of web apps steadily replaces their desktop counterparts.

Kundra signed the contract with Google back in June, and it's estimated to be worth nearly $500,000 a year, according to Bloomberg. The deal will provide District employees with applications like Gmail for communication, Google Docs for word processing and spreadsheets, the recently launched Google Video for business, and Google Sites to wrap it all together with intranets and wikis.

Google Apps has seen an impressive level of adoption since launching over two years ago in February 2006 as Gmail for your domain. Six months later, Google Apps for Your Domain debuted and has since attracted customers from many industries, including GE, L'Oreal, Arizona State University, and Taylor Woodrow, a construction firm based in the UK. Over 500,000 organizations use one version or another of Google Apps, and Google claims that 3,000 more sign up every day.

Google isn't the only party encroaching on Microsoft's Office turf, though. Just over a year ago, Google's closest competitor in the online business application space, Zoho, introduced Zoho Business, a similar collection of apps for online word processing, spreadsheets, calendaring, and collaboration. So far, GE is probably Zoho's most significant win. The company first switched its 400,000 desktops from Microsoft Office to Google Apps, according to WebGuild. But in September, GE switched to Zoho due to privacy concerns, Zoho's broader application and feature base, and Google strangely pushing AdWords as a way to make money.

Zoho's release last week of a complete e-mail solution—including mobile and offline access via Google Gears (a feature Gmail has yet to support)—should make it an even stronger option. If you consider Zoho's recently launched marketplace where third-party developers can build customized applications for Zoho customers, the company now has a very broad, and more extensible, alternative to Google Apps.

In response to all this cloud computing competition, Microsoft hasn't done much and, some argue, it may not have to for a while. Office is still very much the 800 pound gorilla in this space, and a recent US study says that, while 20 percent of Americans have at least heard of online office suites, over 90 percent have never touched one. Plus, 2008 revenues from Microsoft's Business Division (in charge of, among other things, Microsoft Office) rose nearly 20 percent from 2007 to over $18 billion. To combat online offerings, Office Live Workspaces gets Microsoft's foot in the web-based productivity door, but it doesn't offer anything more than an online storage locker for sharing documents.

While Office Live Workspaces reached a notable milestone of 1 million users last month, it still requires desktop Microsoft Office software to be of much value—the very software and all the requisite overhead that an increasing number of customers—like GE—are trying to avoid.

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Cisco Embraces Linux in Battle Against Microsoft

Cisco (CSCO) and Microsoft (MSFT) both want to dominate the unified communications market, where next-generation applications ride across IP networks.

Which Linux makes the best business Windows replacement desktop?

Some of my Linux-savvy friends and I have been hashing out what the best Linux desktop would be for a SMB (small to medium sized business). Out of that conversation, Ken Hess came up with a list of ten best Linux desktop distributions that has Ubuntu at the top and Jason Perlow, while dividing distributions into community and commercial versions, also sees Ubuntu as the best Linux desktop. Ah... I disagree.

It's not that I don't like Ubuntu. I do. I just stayed focused on the full question, which was: "If an SMB wants to upgrade from XP, what Linux variants would you recommend? Consider this would be for an SMB with limited in-house tech expertise."

Note that last phrase: "limited in-house tech expertise." There goes Ubuntu. Yes, Canonical, the company behind Ubuntu, does offer professional technical support, but Canonical is still new at the support business and its offerings are rather generic.

My answer is that those requirements pretty much narrow it down to Novell and SLED (SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop). Novell, and its resellers, knows support and SMB.

In particular, if I don't really know Linux that well and I'm running an SMB, I want a company that can offer me the full support package. That's more than just 24x7 phone support. Both Canonical and Novell offer that. Novell also offers other support options such as certification, training, consulting, and even retaining the services of an engineer.

I also can't help but notice that Canonical appears to be charging $900 for 24x7 support per desktop per year while Novell charges $220 for the same deal. Yes, of course, if you know what you're doing, you don't have to pay any of that. This is Linux after all. But, that wasn't the point. This is for a business that doesn't have a Linux maven on call. Once they do know how to handle Linux, then Linux's cost savings go from good to great.

Of course, SLED 10 SP 2, the latest version, isn't cutting edge Linux. The next version, SLED 11, is due out next year. But, again, what does an SMB want with cutting-edge any thing? I want the newest and neatest, your usual SMB wants a rock-solid operating system without any surprises.

Last, but never least for most businesses, SLED is the most friendly of the desktop Linuxes when it comes to dealing with Microsoft Windows servers. Many people don't like that Novell and Microsoft have gotten all buddy-buddy over the last few years, but if you want Linux and Windows to co-operate in the work place, SUSE is your best choice.

Another option for an SMB is to swing a support deal with an OEM. For example, you can swing a desktop deal with Novell and HP.

Or, while Dell would like SMBs to pay more attention to their Red Hat Desktop offerings with RHEL WS (Red Hat Enterprise Linux, Workstation) 5.1, you can also get Dell/Ubuntu support packages.

There are other options as well. More and more regional and local VARs (value-added resellers) and system integrators are offering desktop Linux support. Personally, I've always preferred working with local businesses.

But, if that's not an option, for an SMB, I'd go with Novell and SLED. It may not be an exciting choice, but it's a very practical one and for a small business, it's all about being practical.

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