Google Apps Enterprise Push

The Guardian reports on CapGemini jumping on the Google Apps bandwagon (at the behest of Google of course):

Google has linked up with IT consultancy and outsourcing specialist CapGemini to target corporate customers with its range of desktop applications, in the search engine’s most direct move against the dominance of Microsoft.

CapGemini, which already runs the desktops of more than a million corporate workers, will provide its customers with “Google Apps” such as email, calendar, spreadsheets and word processing.

CapGemini is one of Microsoft’s partners for its new Vista operating system and will continue to use products from Microsoft and Lotus Notes owner IBM, but adding Google is a vote of confidence in the company’s applications. CapGemini is already installing Google Apps in its first major corporate customer.

There’s not a ton to say here except that Google continues to push into the enterprise — although this will be seen in some quarters as a vote of confidence for the software. I go back to earlier comments by Eric Schmidt (in his recent Wired Interview) about Google’s interest in the enterprise:

Wired: I’ll phrase the question differently. Google gets its revenue essentially from one source — online ads. One could argue that it’s not diversified enough.

Schmidt: The criticism is valid. We do get the vast majority of our revenue from advertising, which is a business that a lot of other people would like to be in. But there are some new revenue models on the horizon. The most interesting is probably Google Apps, where we’re already beginning to get some significant enterprise deals.

Google Apps don’t replace Microsoft Office, but they supplement Office and provide some valuable collaborative features and, of course, online access from any computer. Google Apps is one reason that Microsoft is pushing services like Windows Live Services and moving “into the cloud.”

There’s something of an irony here as Microsoft builds more Web-based consumer services to counter Google and Google aims for the Fortune 500 to diversify its business.

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Here’s more from Read/Write Web and my write up (similar but with some additional detail) from SEL.