Google Apps - Tool for Communication and Collaboration - Essay Example

Google Apps Tool for communication and collaboration Google, which began as a research project by LarryPage in 1996 is currently the world's largest search engine. The company provides free service and depending on the Meta tag entered by the user, it returns relevant results in decreasing relevancy in a fraction of a second. It has actually become the world's largest source of information in almost all prominent world languages. The search of information begins with the site www.google.com and with the help of the entered Meta tag, information can be searched out. The Meta tag can be of any type. The number of domains the Google owns may range to dozens providing services like stock quotes, news headlines, images, email service and many more. The request for information is generally in forma of query and in just fraction of a second the query gets processed and is displayed on the users' screen (Google Inc). The Google which we see today has begun its project as a research project. It was hypothesized by Larry Page and was later assisted by Sergey Brin. The techniques over which search engines were based in 1996 used to display results according to the number of times the search term appear on the page. Larry and Brin worked on the concept that that for better results if the search engine analyze the relationships between the websites. The website and the page with the most links from other relevant sites, is considered as the most relevant site related to the query entered. With this thesis Google came into existence using Stanford website with the domain name being google.stanford.edu. Later in 1997, the domain google.com came into existence and in 1998 the company Google Inc became a reality (Wikipedia). Google's search engine in the year 1998(Wikipedia) The main business of Google is to generate revenue through online advertising. It provides the advertisers the most deliverable and cost effective online advertising opportunity through pages which are most relevant to the product which are being advertised. These advertisements are displayed according to the query searched for and hence are beneficial for both user and the advertiser. The Google AdWords program helps advertisers to promote their products and the Google AdSense program helps many website managers to generate revenue with ad participation though Google (Google Inc). Among all the services Google provides its users, Google Apps is the one which can have a major impact on usage of Office software. In complete sense Google Apps can be said as a service being hosted by Google for business purposes. The communication and collaboration feature of Apps makes it good enough of businesses of any size. This Web based service of Google provides its users tools to ensure collaboration on documents and spreadsheets. The documents can be shared and modified. The libraries for the reference materials can be built. Google provides this service in three different forms. The standard edition is free and has fewer features. It can be used for both normal users as well businesses purposes. The educational version contains all the available features but is available for the colleges and institutions. The condition for being a part of this is that the institute should use for educational purposes, sharing and research. The premium edition of Google Apps is available at a cost of $50 per user account per annum. This edition provides all features that are present in Google Apps. Charging money for its product is something very unique in case of Google. From the beginning Google has generated revenue through advertising tools. Almost all of the soft wares right from searching tool in late 90s of the last century to till date have been made available by Google free of cost. Even Google Apps launched in August 2006 providing services like webmail, calendaring, VoIP, word processing, spreadsheets has been free of cost. Only the premium edition launched this year with target market ranging from small business establishment to major banking and insurance sector corporation is being charged. But if we compare the price Google is charging for providing this service with the cost of MS Office, we will find Google Apps is much much cheaper and can be accessed from more than one peripheral (Google Inc). The Google Apps is very beneficial for smaller businesses and establishments. It allows workgroups to get started with very little investment. In most of the cases Apps have been under use without any investment. There is no need for any information technology manager to maintain the workgroup. The paid version of Google Apps normally suitable for business purposes comes with a guarantee of 99.9 percent uptime and round the clock i.e., 24x7 customer support on all critical issues including the turning off advertisement option (Google Inc). Google Apps and its APIs have lots of options for domain administrators and application developers. The major demand for this service based product is to use the APIs to migrate from existing IT infrastructure and to integrate the same with Google's list of services and offerings. In the same way, application developers and system integrators can use the same to extend the APIs to customize according to the list of services being provided through Google platform. Google along with its Enterprise Professional partners and other developers makes available lots of products so sustain the features it provides along with Google Apps. Many of the features are available only with Premium Edition APIs. Some of the products available through this platform are CompanionLink, gMigrate Premier, Postini Compliance Services, Sxip Access etc. The demand is met through providing spaces to the users and online system soft wares to make spread sheets or office work. So the soft wares are installed on the system of the Google with access being provided through widespread internet. Data are being stored in third party system i.e. Google while the soft wares are being provided by Google Enterprise partners. So, Google has to maintain the servers and it will require up gradation not only in spaces available but in compatibility with the launch of every new service according to the software requirement (Google Inc.). But still the products sold or offered free by Google including have been made available either free or at a very nominal cost. The main source of revenue for Google is the advertisers whose advertisements are being shown on different pages of Google or associate partners' website. The advertisers associated with Google bid on keywords and phrases and when the user searches for some information, it will simply be considered as a query and the relevant page along with the appropriate ads get displayed on the user's screen (Varian, 15). The service being provided by Google requires not only maintenance of existing infrastructure but also adding newer ones to sustain the requirements of new users. It's the number of users which finally translates into revenue generation through advertisement. Google has its servers mounting to more than 450,000 in numbers and distributed geographically to deliver faster performance. If estimated, Google runs a very large number of data centers around the world and had to spend around $ 850 million in the year 2005 to serve new customers and to maintain its market lead. With ever growing list of customers and a regular change in the list of services, the Google continues spending money so that the required technology for the service provided should be bought and maintained accordingly. Google is aiming to provide almost all of the IT services to its users so that the total number of user attached with Google should always see an upward graph and this increase should actually get translated into the growth in ad revenues (Carr). Google's main source of revenue is through the advertisements. It actually gets paid each time one of the ads being displayed on pages of Google is clicked on. The main share of the revenue for Google is from its search engine but to maintain its superiority and customer focus, Google evolved itself from a search engine to mail service, Blogger and now with Google Apps it is now providing services like Web-based word processors and spreadsheets. These services are not making a considerable amount in the total revenue being earned by Google. In the year ending March 2006, in the fourth quarter of the ending financial year Google posted a revenue growth of 67% as compared to its earning during the same period in the last financial year. The same Google had posted a net income of $369.2m in the first quarter of the year 2005 as compared to $64m it had earned in the same period in the year 2004 (Google Inc.). Google Apps allows the organizations to set up private-level versions of their own domain name. The services as delivered by Google like the Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Talk Chat etc. can be used while keeping the private domain rather than using Google's domain. But the benefits associated with Google Apps can be extended to the use of Office software like spreadsheets and word processors. The refined version of these services can pose a serious fight to software giant Microsoft's Ms Office. But as an online version, the services offered by Google is non beatable. Some of the noticeable competitors are Zoho, Basecamp, and Bluetie etc. But these competitors provide very limited services and their list of available options are much smaller than that of Google. Google with its worldwide presence with very big list of free services including the all powerful search engine is too big for above mentioned competitors to compete (Wagner). Since the products that have been offered by Google are either free or at a very nominal cost, so it is almost aloof of any business cycle effect. The product is meant for attracting more and more users to Google. And this number is expected to get translated into the growth of revenue through the advertising world. Any business cycle effect on the products of those advertisers will lead to lesser expenditure in advertisements and finally to the revenue of Google. The Google will have to curtail its list of freebies it currently provides its users because maintaining the infrastructure for those services is equally expensive and involves large expenditure in phasing out and buying of new IT hardware which can maintain not only the services provided to current users but also to the new entrants. So the service based product Google Apps might get affected due to business cycle effect tough indirectly. The product is said to be delivered almost free to the users and the main source of revenue in this case is through advertisements. So it's the advertisers who are the actual thrust behind the growth of Google and its services including Google Apps. The Google's performance is very much dependent on the way these advertisers keep spending on the advertisements through Google. Since these advertisers put their money in advertising because the large user base of Google services appears as a plum market. So more users Google possesses the more will the interest among advertisers to put their adverts on Google pages. But the advertisers are very much dependent on economic conditions and situation like recession, expansion and other critical economic states, so their interest in production and advertisements will behave correspondingly. So, external forces are very responsible in the quantity of revenue being generated by Google through the sale of ad spaces. Federal expenditure has often brought large amount of money in the market. Contracts are being given for new projects. All this expenditure through government stable causes good increase in purchasing power of the common people who might think of putting this money for buying out new products from various sections including FMCG, tourism, sports, and electronic gadgets etc. This actually energizes the whole market economy with rise in people spending as well as production of goods. Then companies for getting some competitive advantage as well as tapping the people's interest go for a very wide spread advertisement plans. Google in this case with its large user base and widespread reach, gives a very bright opportunity to even small producers to inform people about its products and reap the profit. This is the actual strength of Google which helps it in generating revenues in billions. A part of this revenue goes into further up gradation of the services and launching of new services. So the performance of Google's service or product is very much dependent on economic issues like recession, market expansion, federal expenditure or war like situation because all these factors play a important role in people's purchasing power. Interest rates always decide the amount of money to be taken on loan not only by individuals but also by manufacturing and production units. The individuals go for different personal loans in case of interest rates being lower. Similarly the lower interest will influence the small enterprise to take loan so that they can fund their business expansion plans. So again it's the money that will make way to the market. This enhanced circulation of money will cause cumulative growth of the market. This market growth will get translated into more and more purchasing as well as production. And again it will be the associate enterprise who will gain and their gains will now help in generating more and more revenues for the Google. So higher the revenue of Google, the better it is going to serve its customer or user. Though Google users don't pay anything but it is they who are making way for Google to generate higher revenue. Hence, performance of Google is very much dependent on different market forces despite being an IT dotcom company and technically providing everything at almost no cost. Advertisements are Google the main source of revenue. Its online services including Google Apps, to common users are almost free. So factors like international market scenario or exchange rates have almost zero effect on the services of Google. The advertisements that are the real source of revenue are through Google Adwords program. The advertisements on Google pages of its domains including email service and Apps, are very much query centric and the advertisers have different pacts with Google. So the services offered to the common user has nothing to do with those program and also being free or at very low cost, exchange rates actually have no role in influencing the services that Google offers. References Wikipedia "History of Google" February, 2007. February 27, 2007 < http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Google> Google Inc. "Company Information" 2007. February 27, 2007 < http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/index.html> Google Inc. "Technology Overview" February 2007. February 27, 2007 < http://www.google.com/intl/en/corporate/tech.html> Google Inc. "Google Enterprise Professional Partners" February 2007 February 27, 2007 Google Inc. "Google Advertising Programs" February 2007 February 27, 2007 < http://www.google.com/ads/> Google Inc. "Google Announces Fourth Quarter and Fiscal Year 2006 Results." January 31, 2007. Yahoo Finance February 27, 2007. < http://biz. yahoo.com/bw/070131/20070131006139.html> Carr, D. F. "How Google Works" July 6, 2006. Baseline February 27, 2007. Varian, H. R. "Economics of Information Technology" July 2001. University of California, Berkeley page. February 27, 2007 Wagner, M. "Nine Easy Web-Based Collaboration Tools" February 26, 2007. Small BizResource.com. February 27, 2007. Read More