Google Pushes Further into the Enterprise

E-mail has become the lifeblood for many companies. Increasingly, employees are traveling outside of the corporate office and need ways to stay in contact with it. In response, Google broadened the reach of its Google Apps, so they can now exchange information with Apple iPhones and Windows Mobile cell phones.Google Apps has been popular among consumers, so the vendor has been trying to increase acceptance among small and medium businesses. To date, the product has lagged behind competitive offerings in terms of the breadth of its business functionality. Consequently, the company decided to enhance the communications features found with its software. E-mail will now be automatically sent to iPhones and Windows Mobile phones, so nomad executives will not miss any important communications. The new feature is enabled through Google Sync, which already pushes contact and calendar date to cellular phones and comes free with Google Apps.

Google has been trying to break Microsoft's stranglehold on the desktop productivity software market by delivering low cost, functional, easy to maintain solutions. However, the company has been lagging in providing integration to the applications and the devices that many executives use. Although not revolutionary, this new feature illustrates that the vendor understands its limitations and is taking steps to address them. Consequently, more small and medium businesses may want to take a look at its applications.