How much Google software do you use? Are you happy with service blackouts and lack of customer service? How about Google knowing everything about you? Can you rely on Google's quality, serviceability and confidentiality enough to commit your business?
Two Next Web articles illustrate the quandary Google presents us with.
In The Pervasiveness of Google Alex Wilhelm suggests "Google is too good to lose, too big to go away, and so important that we can’t live without it." He would prefer a premium service he could pay for.
In Why Google Doesn't Want Your Money Martin Bryant explains customer service is difficult to deliver, and the impacts of service failure too great. An unreliable service for free suits Google much better than trying to offer a premium service for money. And what Google really wants is mindshare through knowing so much about us.
This is an interesting question for us, in two dimensions.
We use Google Apps for office software – it's just so much easier than managing a mail server and finding ways to share documents etc. We don't publish on Blogger, advertise with Adwords or use Adsense for revenue. We do use Webmaster Tools, Feedburner and Google Reader but don't use Google analytics.
Our bottom line here is we'd happily pay something for the Google software we want to use – because we can see big problems for the Google business model coming down the track. So we agree with Alex -we do pay for a number of services, happily.
In the other dimension we offer an on-line business application – the market for which is defined by Google, in lots of ways. Our target customers perception of software is it should be free – as per Google. and substandard – as per Google – because they aren't paying for it, and so they won't use it. The truth is the software is a high quality business solution with almost perfect service record and a responsive, personalised support service.
On balance my preference would be for Google to do the job properly and charge for it. It's reliance on diminishing ad revenues, whilst others are doing a better job of indexing quality content, suggests Google isn't a company I want to depend on for too much longer.
How can I persuade you Front Office Box is different?
Posted via email from stevensreeves
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