Google goes after MS Office
p2pnet.net News:- With eBay a done deal, Google has further flexed its muscles by grouping a set of Web-based applications aimed at invading Microsoft Office territory.
Google Apps for Your Domain comes in with Gmail, Google Talk, Google Calendar and Google Page Creator, but not Writely or Google Spreadsheets.
“Now you can offer private-labelled email, IM and calendar tools to all of your users for free, so they can share ideas and get things done more effectively,” says the company. “You can design and publish your organization’s website, too. It’s all hosted by Google, so there’s no hardware or software for you to install or maintain.”
Wowee. But wait
Hosted by Do No Evil Google, eh? Google Apps will, then, clearly need certain personal and confidential information.
While it’s considering whether or not to let you in on the beta, it wants to know the names of you and your organization, what type of business you’re in, how you’re involved in IT decisions, what “solutions” your organization uses, whether or not you’re involved in making the decision and even if you’re not a decision maker, that you’d, “sure like to use Google Apps for Your Domain,” your company location, web site addie, whether or not you currently provide email accounts and if you do, what application you use,
And now you’ve naively provided the data, it also wants to know if you’d like to receive, “tips, news of new features, and other relevant information” and provide feedback to Google.
If you’re not among The Chosen, what happens to all that extremely valuable personal and company information you’ve just handed to Google on a plate, and for free?
Does it trash it. Unlikely. If you want it to trash it, will it?
Google doesn’t say.
Also See:
done deal – Google, eBay, ad deal, August 28, 2006
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August 29th, 2006 at 2:15 pm
I hear the suspcion about Google asking for information. Do you assume that Microsoft does not ask for, take, and then use personal and business information sent in with product registration, access to their “knowledge base,” etc? Market research takes many forms.