I just read a post by Dennis Howlett outlining his skepticism about Google Apps and the real value it brings to large enterprise.

He argues that Google Apps is not ready for the enterprise primarily for 2 reasons. First, the Terms of Service that users have to agree to will never fly in an enterprise. Especially in large enterprise which have to comply with endless security regulations. For example, he points out a insane clause that pretty much gives Google ownership of the content you publish on Google Docs. And second, Google Spreadsheet still lacks some key features that would appall the Excel junkies at the office. I would have to agree with Dennis on his points. I mean, Google Docs doesn’t even provide suggestions for misspelled words. Come on, even Craigslist has that!

Now I’m no Google fanboy, BUT are these reasons enough to discount Google from being an enterprise player? I’m not so sure. Granted these products are not mature enough. But these are just superficial barriers to entry. I’m sure developers are currently working on features to make these products a more rounded application. Also, given the power of our analytics tools today, I would expect less and less demand for Excel. Reports in Salesforce are so powerful that you can create graphs and matrix tables without ever touching Excel. And finally, I don’t thinking creating a fair ToS requires much more than rational thinking and editing a document (maybe the lawyers will correct me on this statement).

So today Google may not be ready for the enterprise. But 5 years from now when the company and products mature, I think we’ll be seeing more of Google at the office. They’ll have a product road map, an ISV ecosystem, a support call centre and all the other jazz that make CIOs happy.