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slow news day Paul?

I don't think this is a slow news day story. Gmail has been in beta forever. Of course now if Gmail has an issue, as it has done in the past, Google can't hide behind the "beta" tag.

I like Gmail and am glad it's out of beta but I'm not throwing a parade for it.

No regulated business will allow gmail or any of the g-apps to be used for real world production...its that simple. Maybe some Mom & Pop shops will, but the target is, or at least should be, home users...students and the like. Paul, you shuld realize that...or maybe you can explain why Penton Media is not using them on your recommendation?

--tayme

"You're frivolous."

They always presented themselves this way.  How is this new?  However,

"Which is dumb, because Gmail is awesome"

The products they build are so solid, they stand on their own.  Isn't Google the start page of the Internet?  Isn't Gmail the most used webmail?

" Start treating it as an adult would,"

They do. Just look at their hiring page to see the kind of people they offer.  They spend an enormous amount of time on the backend of things, not the appearance.

" and maybe businesses will be more interested. "

This is Google.  I suspect most business know exactly who they are and will ignore the frivolity.  They've earned the right to be it!.

oooo.... I smell a fanboy

Delmania

"They always presented themselves this way.  How is this new?  However, "

This doesn't mean one jot to businesses, except look to them with an air of unprofessionalism.

"The products they build are so solid, they stand on their own.  Isn't Google the start page of the Internet?  Isn't Gmail the most used webmail?"

Nope, Hotmail is the most used webmail.  And you know it.

"They do. Just look at their hiring page to see the kind of people they offer.  They spend an enormous amount of time on the backend of things, not the appearance."

Great. So do many other companies.  Google isn't any more special than Microsoft, IBM or Sun who provide solid business material backed up with history of delivering when it matters.

"This is Google.  I suspect most business know exactly who they are and will ignore the frivolity.  They've earned the right to be it!."

I suspect most businesses will be slightly put off by it, actually.  There's frivolity and there's professionalism and in the business world, professionalism means everything.

I use gmail, ont the side.  And yes, 5 years is silly. But like Apple, Google is the darling of the press. For now...

The Google Web Apps suite is Fantastic. It might not be the best looking one, but they've put the best effort in it in making work fast and without quirks on any OS/browser/smartphones/computer.

I use Gmail / calendar / Contacts with the build-in Exchange synchronization between iPhones and computers, and that's heaven... your contacts and mails with you where ever you are on whatever computer, always updated on your iPhone.

The Gmail interface has been recently changed on the Iphone and is just fantastic in term of clarity and possibilities. I've never used the built-in mail client in the iPhone (plus it saves space on my phone too !)

And finally the ability to open word or powerpoint docs directly in Gmail thanks to the Google apps without having Office installed on your computer is a great time saver (provided you want to view them of course).

Google has been the company that makes me believe in the power of Web / services / apps.

"You're frivolous."

Paul certainly has enough experience in frivolity to confidently make that accusation.

Pingback from  Gmail out of beta | The Software Nook

My favorite part of the Google "announcment" was the instructions on how you can turn the Beta flag back on.

I suspect they had that "we're always in a constant state of beta so we're oh so cool" flag going for so long that there are 3rd party tools that count on it being there, locate where to scrape the data stream based on it and break if it's gone.

"Isn't Gmail the most used webmail?"

No, actually it isn't.

"The products they build are so solid"

That's why they had a beta tag for years....

"They spend an enormous amount of time on the backend of things, not the appearance."

And it shows.  Literally.

"Paul certainly has enough experience in frivolity to confidently make that accusation."

You're an a$$, losta.

If they actually rewrote the terms of service for accounts, maybe businesses might actually take a second thought and look at it.

....well, probably not.

I have a new client that got suckered, er, convinced into using Google Apps and GMail for their small business setup and they've had nothing but complaints about it.  They already have existing licenses for Office and prefer using Outlook because it has many more features than GMail provides that they use on a daily basis.  Features like conversation tracking, and marketing project management with their customer relationship software that they used in tandem with the industry line-of-business software.  Something that GMail can't replicate.  They were convinced by some slick sales guy that they wouldn't need to service their systems anymore because of "cloud computing".

How wrong he was.  GMail went down several times over the last few months, and one of their accounts was locked out because someone tried to hack it and Google wouldn't unlock it without them providing some kind of proof of business identity that had to be faxed to them several times (they wouldn't accept every piece of ID they sent).

Anyway, they need new systems, and they're getting the Google crap ripped out (they were also using Gears), and new licenses of Office put in, preinstalled on the new computers.

And they're also moving their domain away from Google and onto Office Live Small Business, along with their Office Live Workspace account, which includes a subset of the features that SharePoint offers, without relying on them for critical tasks.  They still store most files locally, and have a rotating on-site/off-site NAS device which the PC document files and LOB database are synced to after hours.  It's easy enough for them to store copies of files online - when necessary for sharing.

Size of company:  4 PC's.

I wondered how long it would take "waethorn" to chime in with another apocryphal story of some mythical customer who suffered loss of productivity, countless hours of frustration and probably even toenail fungus when they moved to a non-Microsoft solution.

That didn't take long.

@losta:

You're still an a$$.

I was waiting for you to contribute nothing relevent to the conversation.

Nice to see you oblige as always.

I still think the iPhone interface stinks for Gmail calendar, and gmail on the browser is substandard [and every other service is better]. I don't use gmail with Exchange, and did not know that I could, but iPhone only allows one Exchange account any way, and my practice uses it. I don't use the apps since there are sales for Win Office just about every day from somewhere, making it affordable for most.

Gmail + Postini is awesome.

And to the person who said "No regulated business will allow gmail or any of the g-apps to be used for real world production...its that simple."

Take a look at Genentech, a $13 billion bio-tech in San Fransisco.

"Take a look at Genentech, a $13 billion bio-tech in San Fransisco."

With a CEO that sat on the executive boards of both Google and Apple.

Now we know who their corporate master is.

I have to agree with lotsamystuff. That story from Waethorn sounds made up. I call shenanigans.

"That story from Waethorn sounds made up."

Use losta's favourite definitive resource site:

en.wikipedia.org/.../Genentech

Oh, you mean the other one?  Well judge for yourself:

www.pcworld.com/.../gmail_outage_marks_sixth_downtime_in_eight_months.html

"I call shenanigans."

Wasn't that from a cartoon?  Figures that's the intelligence level that losta drones up.

@Waelthorn

Still doesn't change the fact that Genentech's a regulated company using Gmail. You claimed no regulated company would allow the use Gmail in a production environment.

And unless you can offer evidence proving Microsoft innocent of ever using their power or relationships to influence a sale of their products, ... um, what's your point?

Shenanigans is a real word with a real definition. It's all there in the dictionary.

This thread is going nowhere fast.

Peace

@Ribatu - It was me that said that...Show me where they used gmail and g-apps as their primary mail and productivity apps...and also tell me who regulates them...

--tayme

"You claimed no regulated company would allow the use Gmail in a production environment."

You're talking about a US biotech firm being somehow regulated?  Don't make the rest of the world laugh.

Genetech is regulated by the FDA

findarticles.com/.../ai_n23600471

And "waethorn": F*ck you.

"Genetech is regulated by the FDA"

And so the world laughs.

"And "waethorn": F*ck you."

Ya, there's that class you claim you have....

Read it and weep:

www.nytimes.com/.../05apple.html

In addition to the FDA, Genentech  (prior to merging with Roche) was regulated as a public company by the SEC. We could also add that they had to comply with Sarbanes-Oxley as well as any foreign regulatory agencies such as the EMEA or UK's MHRA.

So Genentech had/has the distinction of being regulated by many regulatory bodies. I think that's enough to qualify them while the use Gmail for their production email. Google's Postini product offers the SAS-70-audited archiving and security.

Waethorn, I think you may have wandered into a different league here. Seriously, just drop it and go peacefully.

"Waethorn, I think you may have wandered into a different league here."

As soon as s/he stepped out of the basement, that was true.

"Don't make the rest of the world laugh."

When the rest of the world wants a laugh, they watch "Canadian Bacon" for a little slice of what it's like to be America's hat.

@tayme: "No regulated business will allow gmail or any of the g-apps to be used for real world production...its that simple"

You have no clue at all, do you? Plenty of businesses are using it. And, it's a far better option than the Microsoft route with Office and Exchange. Office/Exchange are the new Lotus Notes.

@tayme: There are plenty of businesses using it. And extremely successfully and happy with it: www.google.com/.../customers.html

There are plenty more than just those. Once again, please get a clue.

@miguelgalos: "My favorite part of the Google "announcment" was the instructions on how you can turn the Beta flag back on."

Wow, you Microsoft drones have no sense of humor, do you? It's just a bit of fun. At least they (Google) have a sense of humor.

Waethorn:

"@losta:

You're still an a$$."

I agree, Waethorn.

"Wow, you Microsoft drones have no sense of humor, do you?"

Of course we do. It's why I come on here to point out the idiocies posted by the Mac fanatics. I find it really funny to pop your self-inflated baloons.

After all, it's not like anybody in the industry really takes Cupertino's desktop and laptop offerings seriously - it's just more fun to laugh at you than listen to the freetards (as FSJ would say) spend another hour droning on about how "next year will be the year of the Linux desktop". Those guys are just too boring even to laugh at.

lololo ...  

mikegalos : "My favorite part of the Google "announcment" was the instructions on how you can turn the Beta flag back on."

We call this a feature lololo

to all those getting goose bumps over Google's stack and finally being able to have uber exciting things like all your email and contacts sync'd on all your computers and devices... I have only one question:

WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN?

We've been enjoying secure only, VPN free, log on any PC (joined or unjoined) access to all of these features for nearly ten years. We've had them on our phones for years. We've integrated email, contacts, calendars, tasks and notes and associated documents since 2001. We've been extending them into web based apps with WFC based desktop client since 2003.

We've enjoyed nearly all of this for ten years and added docs and apps integration for almost as long. We've had secure, through the air Push since the SFP in WinMob 5.2.

So many get all hyped over that which even the smallest business has had for a very long time.

How about presence tokens and AD integartion? Federations and DFS/FRS? Got em and have had em - for years!

Integration with S3? Azure? FLASH RMI? how about Java RMI, COM, Corba? Yep, yep and more yep!

What the <blank> it's been like air with MS's stack and tools for a good long while and don't think for a second that Gazelle and Bing don't scare the snott out of Google - they do. What in heck do you think we do with that NAND flash Turbo mode memory on laptops and the workstations we build? you think that Gazelle won't run there and then silently sync with the main host OS when it loads at the user's request? think again - it isn't there just to speed apps and windows explorer views!

Finally, while Google, et al have been getting all warm and tingly over basic sync, we've gone to the next level and productized information - presenting it as interactive, visual, real-time information products connected not only to live data, but all the messaging, collaboration and related data and code bits you can imagine.

I aks again: "where have ya'll been?"

@mikegalos: "After all, it's not like anybody in the industry really takes Cupertino's desktop and laptop offerings seriously"

Oh, how you show yourself to be so misinformed and naive. Yet again.

"It's not like anybody in the industry really takes Cupertino's desktop and laptop offerings seriously"

Oh, how you show yourself to be so misinformed and naive."

Care to back that up?  I don't know of any major company that is deploying Macs on the desktop/laptop.  And if they are, it certainly isn't for everyone, probably just the executive team.  If you have any significant evidence, bring it to the table.

Why do some people here immediately demand proof that Google or Apple products are actually being used? Honestly, this knee-jerk reaction is akin to the 17th century church gasping at Galileo when he first said the Earth may actually revolve around the sun.

Why so scared?

@Ribatu:

The american FDA is the biggest joke in the Worldwide medical industry.