Google Pushing Enterprise Communications, Executive Says
Google is looking at enterprise opportunities in its voice and other unified communications services, Rajen Sheth, group product manager for Google Apps, a service offering Web-based productivity tools, said in an interview. Communications service will play a bigger role in the company’s overall strategy in the next few years, he said.
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Google sees voice as a technology that can be expanded into enterprise, Sheth said. Google Voice, the company’s web-based VoIP platform, was recently opened to all consumers in the U.S., he noted. “We look to bring voice services to business users in the future,” he said. Google uses its own services to run the company, so many of the services for consumers were already embedded with enterprise capabilities, he said. Additionally, voice is “where we can tie our browser capabilities with phone lines,” Sheth said. “You will see us make it easier and easier for users to connect,” he said. There are a variety of services from Google suite that can be brought to the enterprise, he said.
Mobile devices are a “major part of the story,” Sheth said. More people will do more work with their mobile devices than with their desktop computers, he said. Despite different operating systems, a goal is to make Google applications work well on mobile browsers, not just through smartphones but through the emergence of operating systems on devices like netbooks, he said. A trend is that browsers are becoming better and that enables more mobile applications, he said. “We don’t care what operating system you use. … We want to make sure as long as you have a browser, you can be productive,” he said.
Unified communication service is expected to be a bigger part of Google, according to Sheth. The company has been making familiar tools like e-mail, office applications, VoIP and video-calling much more collaborative, he said. “You will see more innovation in communications technology,” he said. With the flexibility and innovation behind cloud computing, the company is able to launch one to two new features to Google Apps each week, a spokeswoman said.
Meanwhile, one of Google’s top policy priorities is to protect and promote the open Internet, the spokeswoman said. The company has been engaged at the FCC for several years, weighing in on issues like net neutrality, open access, white spaces and the National Broadband Plan, she said.