Is Gmail ready for business?
Outage raises questions about Google's enterprise aspirations.
Google's Gmail has to outperform its competitors. Image: Google
Gmail's patrons are still cranky after the Sept. 1 outage that left them without Gmail for nearly two hours. For most users who rely on the free e-mail service, its absence — during prime web-surfing hours no less — was a nuisance.
But for Google’s (GOOG) enterprise business, the stakes are higher. More than 1.75 million companies pay the annual $50-per-user subscription fee for their employees to use Google Apps, the web-based application suite that includes Gmail for business and other functions.
It’s been two years since Google launched the product, and just this past summer it removed the term “beta,” explaining Google Apps has “met or exceeded” the standards of non-beta software.
For most of Google’s corporate customers, relying on software delivered as a service rather than managed internally remains a new idea, one that many are still testing. A public and lengthy outage can send a chilling effect across the industry.
E-mail outages are not uncommon
It's not that traditional e-mail services are any more reliable than services managed from the cloud. (That’s the term that has arisen to describe a new computing model in which businesses rely on third parties to manage servers and deliver software.)
In fact, most e-mail goes down. According to Osterman Research, based in Black Diamond, Wash., e-mail systems in mid-size and large organizations have a mean of 53 minutes of unplanned downtime in a typical month. Add that up and it becomes 10.6 hours annually. By contrast, observers point out that Gmail has crashed only a few times this year.
But services like Gmail must outperform the traditional e-mail services if they are to win loyalty. For one, they are competing in a new industry. Many companies are still nervous about letting an outside company manage their productivity software, including something as basic — but as crucial — as messaging software. “When you are relying on a third party to get that access, you lose that level of control,” explains Forrester Research analyst Sheri McLeish. “Whose neck do you wring?”
Carrying the torch for "cloud computing?"
Also, when companies buy their software as a service, making monthly payments rather than one lump investment, it’s easier for them to switch if they grow frustrated with the product. More traditional software is so expensive to purchase and to maintain that even when it becomes onerous, people stick with it.
Google did the right thing by reacting immediately and with maximum transparency. Google's Site Reliability Czar, Ben Treynor apologized on the company blog and called the event a “Big Deal,” capitalizing the letters in the phrase.
He explained exactly why it happened, saying it was caused by a miscalculation when a few servers were taken offline for upgrades, causing a disturbance in the force.
But an apology might not be enough in the long run. Says McLeish, "They'll have a much harder time attracting businesses. It isn't just one outage for Google. This was similar to a prior outing … in the business world there are penalties for this."
I love google apps and use them for my business. I think they have a great uptime for the cost (free for me, since I don't have more than 50 users). Google provides a great product and kudos to them for handling failures and downtime transparently.
Google has failed me VERY FEW times since inception — which is about when I started using it — as an IT Professional working with MS Exchange and many other platforms, I would have to say that the outages undergone are minimal and complaints are by nature… but not necessarily warranted.
Thanks to Google for its generosity, uptime and contribution to business and personal communication and productivity!
We use Google Apps for our small consulting business. The outage affected us, but not critically.
The question for a business has to be – what do you get in return for the money you pay?
For a very small business, the Google Apps solution makes a lot of sense for us. We get access from any computer that has a browser. The mobile version is compatible with all major platforms. Google offers Outlook synchronization if you need it. The email AND the calendar are robust.
In order to get all that functionality from a hosted provider would cost multiple times what Google Apps costs us on a per-user basis.
Every organization I have ever worked in – large or small – has had outages from time to time. I am certainly not saying that the market will tolerate multiple outages over lengthy periods of time. But a single outage, for a limited time, that comes with an explanation is not going to damage the cloud computing industry. The writer is just plain wrong to say that this highlights the dangers of cloud computing.
The bottom line is that email and calendar management is expensive and difficult to maintain inhouse. Google Apps makes a lot of sense for a lot of organizations. They have good people working on the product and I think Google Apps will continue to grow – despite articles like this.
Does Fortune have proofreaders?
“When you are relying on a third party to get that access, you lose that level of control,” explains Forrester Research analyst Sheri McLeish. “Whose neck do you ring?”
The proper word is wring – " to squeeze or twist especially so as to make dry or to extract moisture or liquid" (Webster)
I own a consulting firm Think Smart Solutions and would like to state that while Gmail's downtime to be quite disturbing, how it handled problem is just as important as the problem itself. If anything it illustrated Google's commit to service. Lets be honest. Google offers excellent service at an affordable price. It has consistently outperformed its competitors in the same space. Companies that manage their own email has downtime, its just that they are in control of fixing it which gives the illusion that downtime is minimal. Honestly it can be longer than Cloud services.
We at GSX Groupware Solutions work with a large number of Fortune 100 companies to help them ensure that their email systems and running at maximum uptime.
One typical issue that we encounter is that there are too often disconnects between end-user perceptions of service and IT internal measurements. Typical comments would be that servers are running at 99.999% so it has to imply that applications running on these servers are at the same level of satisfaction.
Preventing outtages starts at defining genuine service requirements and translating them in appropriate systems measurements, not the other way round.
For enterprises that use Lotus Notes and Domino, downtime is highly unusual. In my 5+ years at my current job, I don't think our Notes mail has ever been unavailable. Given that kind of reliability, and also its unmatched security, why choose anything else?
Gmail trumps most mail services in responsiveness, throughput, and scale, downtime is relatively non-existent. Anybody who has worked in an organization that uses Exchange or Lotus or whatever, or has had mail hosted by their ISP knows that their mail services go down far more often than Gmail. In fact, when I was at a couple of those organizations, I used gmail when the mail service went down.
You mentioned that most mail services have 53 minutes of unplanned downtime. They also have planned downtime. Gmail has not in the 5 years that I have used it.
As a user, I also like GMail because the spam filtering is excellent, and I don't have to waste time trimming my mailboxes to meet corporate quotas. That is a huge productivity gain. Also, searching for old emails is dead simple in gmail compared to Outlook. That is another huge productivity gain.
$50 per user per year is what large companies pay for premium support. I know a lot of companies that use gmail via google apps as the email system, and it is free (up to 50 users I think). Many smaller companies are simply choosing to not purchase servers, Exchange licenses, Outlook/Office licenses, and go with gmail instead (and OpenOffice for word processing, spreadsheets, and presentations). Also, you get Google Docs for free with that.
The "outsourcing to 3rd party" line is old. Most organizations outsource their internet service, phone service, electricity & plumbing to 3rd party providers. It's only a matter of time before server & application hosting becomes the norm too. Google has gutted the cost structure of computing services with their offerings, and that will provide many companies a competitive advantage over time. That gutted cost structure will attract plenty of businesses. GE and Proctor & Gamble have already done it…
I think the question for a frustrated company becomes: Where will a company go for more reliable email delivery? I don't think that there is as robust of a solution out there that provides superior reliability.
I rely heavily on Google's services and the Gmail outage set me back significantly as I was unable to deliver the services that I promised as they are sent via email – but I am not about to switch. There is nowhere to go. And hosting my own email will be far less reliable than Google doing it.
Unless there are some very specific efforts from Google and other "public" services to say AND demonstrate they will protect your privace of data you put on their services, it is not a good idea to get comfortable putting any of your business information in a public system. Check the privacy policy, check the laws on privacy of your information. You may be surprised to learn that your use of these systems allows the owners to utilize your data after a period of time for thier own purposes whatever that may be.
Of for fricks sake… they were out for less than two hours. Why do people keep talking about this. Google have explained the problem, apologised and the service is back to normal. Whenever MSN or Yahoo have problems with their mail services, they don't give explanations or apologies.
No system is perfect and won't have 100% uptime all the fricken time. It's just an excuse for those who don't like Google (but use their services because they're some of the best on the market) to rip into them.
I agree with the comment by: Chuck, St. Charles Missouri.
Is Google still parsing gmail for advertising purposes? Forgive me if there was a repeal of that policy and I missed it – but I will NEVER trust my email to any company that parses my messages for any reason whatsoever! For businesses to trust this to my mind is very foolish.