Q&A: Google's Jonathan Rochelle Talks Enterprise StrategyQ&A: Google's Jonathan Rochelle Talks Enterprise Strategy

What's next for Google Apps, Drive, Chrome, and Google's overall strategy to break Microsoft's stranglehold on the enterprise desktop? Google Apps group product manager Jonathan Rochelle followed up his Interop 2012 keynote speech by sitting down with information's Paul McDougall to discuss the road ahead.

IW: How big a player can Google be in the enterprise market?

JR: To be honest, it might be an optimistic view, but I believe we can be the biggest provider [of e-mail and apps] in the enterprise. We're already really large. The problem we've got is that it's secondary to our core business from a financial perspective. We don't have to report the numbers, so we don't. But even today we would be one of the largest enterprise software companies out there. The momentum we have is very large.

IW: You've got a number of point solutions and technologies. How does it all come together in the enterprise?

JR: There's a very strong tie-in between Chrome and Android and the apps business. There's a device angle, if you picture Android and Chrome books, and those things can be remote-managed, remote-wiped; there are all kinds of controls that then cross over into apps where you have control panels that give you control over documents, spreadsheets, mail, contacts. All the things that people use across the corporation. And that ties together with the Google search appliance and search. If someone is doing search across their documents and mail, they can search behind the firewall. So there's a tremendous tie-in.

IW: And you're also rolling out some specialty services?

JR: There [are] some vertical things that are very specific, like the Geode service. It's incredible. What people can do with the map services that are provided to professionals go well beyond what was already available, especially at that cost. So there's a whole stream of things that fit together.

IW: There's no doubt that Google's offerings are growing, but is it tough selling into an enterprise market that's dominated by Windows Server and Exchange on the back end?

JR: It's not necessarily inhibiting. I think the inhibiting factor is the inertia. There are people who want to make this move, but they already have this investment in things. So what happens is when they hit a decision point, that's when they start considering. And that’s why we've got some momentum--because a lot of decision points are due. Do I go to Office 365, do I go to the next Exchange Server, which one of those Microsoft products should I consider, or do I look at what else is out there? In the past, there was nothing there.

That's why I believe we can be the biggest: because I believe we provide a choice, and it's a different way to work. It changes the paradigm of productivity across all those products.

[ Read about Google's self-driving cars, which are now being tested in Nevada. See Google Gets License For Driverless Car. ]

IW: Any plans for your own server product?

JR: That's a great question. Not that I know of right now. But Chromium as an operating system is not infeasible.

IW: Microsoft responded to Google Apps with Office 365. How does that impact you?

JR: We started in the cloud; for us it changed the way people work. I think for them it's more of a placeholder to say, "Oh, and you can get that cloud stuff too." Because with them, you do still commit to the desktop. That's where we differ. We don't actually think you should be committed to the desktop. We don't think it's necessary, and it alters in a negative way those productivity gains. IW: So Microsoft's move into the cloud doesn't concern you at all?

JR: Certainly they've got incumbency on their side. It's easier to get someone to switch from one thing to another of that same style, particularly from a licensing perspective, and installation perspective, and inertia.

IW: What's the biggest impediment to the adoption of cloud apps? When customers say no thanks, what are the reasons?

JR: I don't think there is a single thing. The product set is very broad. But I'm not in sales, so I don't have a good answer. With collaboration products, it's typically because they have people in the organization who still need Office and they're not making the connection that they can use both. The question they should be asking is whether 80% of their people can be more productive using our product. The answer usually is yes. Office is very specialized software, and it's awesome, but it's not for everybody.

IW: Is there a services opportunity for Google around cloud integration?

JR: I think there is. We're keeping our investment right now in the core, and we're actually enjoying the fact that people like CloudLock and others are benefitting from the gaps that we leave. We like to see that happen.

IW: Microsoft spent $8.5 billion to acquire Skype, and is integrating real-time video across their product set. How does Google respond?

JR: We will counter that. Video is already core to Google+, and Google+ will become core to Google Apps. Multi-way video to us is core. We don't have a when yet, but it will be an integration of Google+ in a way that [allows] the admins of the domain [to] control the sharing of Google+. Today a Hangout can be shared with anyone. If you share the link, they can get in. We need to protect that; we need to add the access control list. IW: On the client side, Microsoft is looking to make Windows 8 an OS that can stretch across PCs, tablets, and smartphones to deliver a consistent experience. At some point does Google plan to merge Chromium and Android?

JR: There's probably some advantage to that. There's a beta version of Chrome on Android. I use it constantly and it's incredible. I think Chrome has pushed the limits of browsers and has done a great thing for the industry in a lot of ways, and I think for Android it's also going to be a benefit. I don't know if at the next level down, Chromium plus Android, will come together. I'm not close enough to say that. I see it as Chrome being a great browser for the Android operating system.

IW: Google Apps was built for browsers, but many people believe we're entering the post-browser age. Any thoughts on that?

JR: It's funny. In the past I always would have talked about the benefit of delivering through the browser--the multi-platform aspect. It's hard to deliver on Linux and Sun and whatever else. It was really a beautiful thing to only worry about the browser. But now that we've got mobile platforms, iOS and Android specifically, we kind of see the value of that, particularly with offline apps. So we've got Android apps that are out there; we've got an announcement that Drive is going to be delivered on iOS; and there [are] going to be native apps again, definitely.

When it all comes together in the cloud and you're still accessing the same data, everything conforms to the cloud at least. That's a huge benefit. It's just the development cost that's really the unfortunate part.

IW: What's next for Google Apps?

JR: We could add a lot. Internally we have people who want to do a Microsoft Project-like product. We could, but we would rather do what we did with the Drive platform and open it up so that other tools can exist. Once you have a strong organizational capability on the content, and single sign-on, and some kind of access control, you put that together and suddenly you can use almost any product that's a Drive app. And you can track it and control it. There are a lot of opportunities that we won't necessarily fill.

IW: What else is in the pipeline?

JR: More mobility, the integration of social, and the ability to get our products to work offline is something we've been doing a lot of.

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