New Google Enterprise Blog

Hey! I just found the Google Enterprise Blog.

The Google team have just released a version of Google desktop specifically aimed at enterprises, and are encouraging users at companies and organizations to install it now for free. I noticed they're also offering a premium support package that offers consultative help with deployment and configuration. It looks like you don't need to be running a google search appliance to use it, but you get cooler functionality if you do.

Having been a Google Desktop user since it's first beta, I know how well it works. And at first, this offering looks to me like an interesting take on the ECM field. They can search all content across an organization from one place. They have some nice collaboration stuff built in with Googletalk. They're even offering rudimentary retention management.

But, unlike everyone else in the ECM field, Google aren't storing the content. They're leaving it exactly where it is. All they're storing is a large index of where to find it. So, it's not really Enterprise Content Management - - it's more Enterprise Content Discovery. Without the ability to properly manage retention or versioning, just to name a few, the big ECM players aren't in any danger of having their revenues eroded anytime soon.

But it does make me wonder about the relevance of accurate classification and filing in a post Google world. Does my corporate fileplan matter, if I can always find whatever I'm looking for? Is simply storing the document title and the content enough to always retrieve whatever a user wants?

I know that my personal documents (that aren't put into our corporate ECM system) are dreadfully filed according to my mood at the moment I click 'save', but Google Desktop can find them every time.

It will be really interesting to watch the development and direction the GE guys take.

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