I'm not overly distraught about the ...early death of Google Wave. I personally found it complicated and awkward, in no way intuitive as a means of collaborating with co-workers on a particular project and much too narrow in the sorts of processes it could help streamline. But I've never been much of an early adopter and assumed all the question marks were floating only over my head as I tried to noodle out ways my company could benefit from using Google Wave. (Google Voice and Google Docs, on the other hand, I've found wonderfully intuitive and at various times useful in my work life.) ...Tom Nolle had much clearer ideas when it came to use cases. He proposed that healthcare organizations create patient chart Waves that could "link to the tests that had been taken, doctors' and nurses' notes, and even real-time telemetry if the patient was being monitored continuously." And by combining it with Robots and Gadgets, Tom speculated that Wave could help propel Google into the unified communications market. Wave was clearly interesting to some, and has been ...adopted by a number of businesses thinking outside of the box when it comes to intra-company collaboration. But the adoption rate was clearly not high enough and this week Google pulled the plug on further development of Wave.
As an industry analyst who tracks software and solutions that businesses use for communications, I'm often asked about Google's role in the industry. I generally respond that ...Google Enterprise is focused mainly on search tools and cloud-based office productivity apps, not on comms and collaboration. But don’t discount Google, my response continues. The company has a number of communications-oriented products--Google Voice, Google Wave, and a Skype-like internet voice service that came courtesy of its acquisition of Gizmo5 late last year. These are mainly focused on consumers, but trends in the consumerization of IT could easily propel usage of these and other Google products in the enterprise as well.
What I am in fact distraught about is Google's generally cavalier approach to the collaboration and communications market. It acquired two developers of voice and video codecs, GIPS and On2, but provided no insight into what it plans to do with these companies and their technology. It acquired Gizmo5, but closed its Skype-like internet telephony service to new subscribers and, again, provided no insight into its plans for the service. It launched Wave in a hullabaloo of marketing hype, and closed it down a year later when people did not flock to it in droves. Not commenting on intentions and future plans is a hallmark for this company. But it will in no way endear itself to businesses counting their communications and collaboration options.
Perhaps what makes Google so attractive to consumers--free services--is preventing it from succeeding in the enterprise. After all if, if you don't pay for internet search, cloud-based word processing, online email, or mobility services of the find-me/follow-me, SMS forwarding and call recording variety, you don’t have much leverage to request changes if the service is not quite what you want. This is a significant issue to businesses, which expect changes to be made to products based on their specific needs...not a love-it-or-leave-it attitude on the part of their communications software suppliers. And in offering generally free services Google has little real incentive to make changes to the products based on customer demand. The bulk company’s revenues stem from advertisers, after all, not individuals or businesses that pay for its products. So if something like Wave is not immediately embraced, it's perhaps easier to just throw the whole kit and caboodle in the garbage can rather than redesign it in a way that better meets users’ needs and allows it to succeed as a platform for communication and collaboration.
At this point, I'm no longer looking to Google for the next big thing in the communications and collaboration space. I’m not looking for new collaboration tools that will replace Wave in the company’s product line-up. I'm not looking for the public launch of an internet telephony service based on the Gizmo5 community. And I’m not looking for real-time voice native to Google Voice. What I'm looking for is commitment. Commitment to the market for communications and collaboration solutions. Commitment to the communications and collaboration products Google introduces. Commitment to the businesses that are now (or will be) relying on Google communications and collaboration products. Google needs to demonstrate it is no longer a dilettante and dabbler when it comes to communications services, but rather a company ready to stand behind its products as consumers and businesses alike come to rely on them. Until such a commitment is made Google will very likely remain eclipsed by developers that are already demonstrating their commitment to customers of their communications solutions.
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