Dec 04 2008
Google Apps – A Threat To Hosting Providers?
Yesterday I had the privilege to listen to Hanson Toh, the Country Consultant of Malaysia in his workshop on Google Apps organized in the MIRC KL SME ICT Summit 2008. I have long heard about Google Apps but this time has made me seriously consider a major move.
First of all, I am quite a supporter of Google (at least more than Microsoft 
). If I were to work for others, I wish I could work for Google. They are the number 1 best employer in a survey! I admire most for their business strategy and innovation.
The team in Google have so far done a terrific job working towards their mission to organize the world’s information and make it easily accessible through their search engine and other applications. And I believe they will continue to grow and dominate the Internet, at least in the foreseeable future.
In these few years, one of their applications called Google Apps has developed into a formidable application that stores your data in the “cloud” (meaning on the Internet instead of your PC or server). It allows you to host your domain name, build your web site, access your emails using their famous Gmail (more than 2GB per user!), collaborate with others with online calendar, receive event notifications by SMS, edit, store your office application (vs. the non-free Microsoft Office), and do many other things.
In fact, I already have customers switching their email service to Google Apps. In future, I believe more and more enterprises will register their domain name and sign up with Google Apps. I also have one domain name with Google Apps in order to try it out, though I have not started using it yet
Google Apps has a strong selling proposition in email service. But in terms of hosting your web site, especially the more complex web applications, it has yet to be comparable to normal hosting providers. But I believe one day they will be as good as, if not better than, us the hosting providers in web hosting too.
So is Google Apps a threat to hosting providers? Definitely yes. They think from the user’s point of view and bundle applications in such an innovative way into a complete solution for businesses. Perhaps one day end users will not know the term “hosting” any more. They no longer need to “find a hosting provider”. Just register your domain and “google” it! And the word “google” here does not only mean to search as of now, but to put up your documents, emails, web site and every other data on the Internet.
As long as Google is a responsible company and does not do evil (as what they swear by and I believe they do walk their talk), their entry into the hosting industry should be welcomed. The hosting industry may just disappear or change to something else in the future. But it’s natural progression as the Internet landscape develops.
As the saying goes, if you can’t beat them, join them. And this is what I’m contemplating to do. When one day comes that Google Apps is so dominant in the market and becomes a must-have tool for businesses, at least I will be in better position to retain and continue to serve my current over 600 customers.
What do you think of Google Apps?
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Google is not a hosting provider. The Google Sites services provided by Google is more like a wiki service for creating collaborative intra net. The sites created have restricted features and also do not treat the non Google links (URLs) in its indexing which is one of the major turn off for website builders and SEO experts.
And This has been made clear many times (by Google on their blogs) that Google does not has any intention to get into hosting.
Sunil / Dhruvsoft
Google Apps Setup
http://www.dhruvsoft.com/buynowstandard
Thanks Sunil for response
I just visited your site.
I didn’t know Google made such clarifications before. Tried to search for it but can’t find. Can provide any links?
Anyway, I do have customers who host their web site with me and emails with Google. Does this not mean Google is playing the role of a mail hosting provider?
But thinking from Google’s point of view, why don’t they get into hosting? If they can provide a platform to create and put up our web sites, why don’t they not improve it and make it full-featured top-notch hosting service?
See my post on “unlimited hosting” here at http://www.rickysoo.com/2008/08/19/unlimited-hosting-server-space-anyone/ . Now most hosting services are defined by space, bandwidth etc. But one day these factors might be done away. Why can’t someone provide “cloud hosting” in future so that hosting is not defined by space any more? And why not Google?
you are rite, google really provide the basic of what a website need… for beginner or those small company website, google apps provide them more then enough to use.
Ricky, this is really hard to say… very unpredictable. Google might have other plan…
So for you and me, it is better to get prepared than sorry? Any steps you are taking as a hosting provider?
Email hosting & online services are interesting subjects, since so many companies are now moving online for all of their service needs instead of maintaining big in house servers and customized software (very expensive!). And free services from Google are even more a of threat (with some ads, of course). But for security issues, I don’t think many large companies are ready to put all their info on the interwebs…
I can see how Google can post a huge hosting threat to some web hosting companies. I suppose someone could setup with a dns service and use the hosting google provides for pages, as well as setup the dns for gmail/docs, etc. core items for a business. Individual could add analytics to improve to even more goodness. Though, right now; i feel like google apps is just a supplement to web hosting companies. in a way redefining email and document management for businesses, nonprofits, and universities.
Josh