谷歌借力‘消费化’挺进企业级市场

    谷歌（Google）在企业级市场上的销售的战略如下：拿一种流行的个人消费产品，做一些小的改进，然后在产品名后加上“企业版”三个字。听起来很简单？事实证明这种方法确实奏效。购买Gmail、谷歌日历以及谷歌地图等产品的公司规模越来越大【谷歌最近公布，西班牙银行巨头西班牙对外银行（BBVA）也已成为其企业客户】。虽然实际上谷歌致力于企业客户的团队规模仍然相当精干。

    尽管如此，企业市场销售在谷歌总收入中所占比重尚不足4％，因此，要想与微软（Microsoft）或SAP比肩，成为企业级市场上的重量级选手，搜索引擎公司谷歌可谓任重道远。如何争取企业用户（开发者就更不用说了），成为他们必不可少的工具？谷歌对此有何打算。为了了解这方面的情况，我们最近采访了上任伊始的谷歌企业业务负责人阿米特•辛格，辛格曾在企业市场巨头甲骨文（Oracle）效力了20年。

《财富》：你们的企业战略是什么？

    辛格：我们的长远目标是把同样的个人消费产品带给那些极有兴趣改变运作方式的企业，因为它们已经看到了个人消费市场眼下出现的创新。我们首先将搜索设备推向企业级市场，随后是应用程序，然后是我们的地图解决方案。我们利用自身的技术资源开发这些产品企业版本——可以把它们看成增强版。当然，有些（功能）只面向企业，因为它们显然并不存在个人版。但整个信息技术的消费化有着深远的影响。它远不止是带自己的设备去上班这么简单。

除了实时协作外，使用企业级谷歌应用还有哪些优势？

    协作和共享是重点领域。此外其优势还在于简易和快速。下一个版本马上就要发布，用户无需安装任何东西。它使用起来不需要什么技术。完全不需要使用手册，因为这些产品简单而直观。用户完全不用操心我们为实现这一效果在后端所做的工作。

那么谷歌应用的下一步是什么？

    设想一下，你在机场，查看一下社交图谱，就可以知道临近的登机口有某位工作中接触过的人。我们正从用户要求系统完成某项任务转变为系统建议并协助用户完成某项任务。地理位置服务对企业用户有着广泛的用途——大家很快就会看到我们在这个领域推出的一系列产品。我们有日历、任务和电子邮件，大家接下来会看到我们从用户方面将它们深度整合。Google+和谷歌应用正日益靠拢。现在你知道某人在哪儿，也知道他们与另一个人有什么联系。因此，手机可以提示你去作一番自我介绍。它可以影响到销售。

    Here's Google's (GOOG) strategy for selling to the enterprise: Take a popular consumer product, make a few small enhancements and tack the words "for business" on the end of the name. Sound simplistic? Turns out, it works. Larger and larger companies are signing on for products like Gmail, calendar and maps. (Google's most recently announced enterprise customer is Spanish banking behemoth BBVA.) All of this despite the fact that Google has a relatively tiny team devoted to snagging corporate customers.

    Still, enterprise sales make up less than 4% of Google's total revenues, so the search company is nowhere near becoming a large-scale enterprise player on par with Microsoft (MSFT) or SAP (SAP). To find out more about how Google plans to become an indispensable tool for corporate users (not to mention developers), we recently caught up with Amit Singh, the newish leader of Google's enterprise business and a 20-year-veteran of enterprise power-player Oracle (ORCL).

FORTUNE: How would you describe your enterprise strategy?

    Singh: Our long-term goal is to take these same consumer assets and bring them to businesses that are keenly interested in changing how they operate because they see the kind of innovation that's taking place in the consumer space. We did this first with our search appliance, then with apps, then with our maps solution. We are taking our technology assets and building enterprise versions of them -- think of them as enhancements. Of course, certain things we'll do just for the enterprise, because clearly there's no consumer version of it. But the whole consumerization of IT has deep, profound implications. It's much more than bringing your own device to work.

Are there advantages to using Google Apps for Business, other than real-time collaboration?

    Collaboration and sharing are the key areas. But it's also about simplicity and speed. The next version just shows up, so you don't have to install anything. Technology is moving out of the way. You never have to use a manual because it's simple and intuitive. You shouldn't have to worry about what we do in the back-end to enable that.

So what's next for Google Apps?

    Imagine you're at an airport and based on your social graph you know that at the next gate there's someone you're in touch with through work. We're moving from asking the system to do something for you to the system suggesting and assisting you. You can do a lot with location for enterprise users -- you'll see some product launches in this area. We have calendaring and tasks and email, and you'll see us deeply integrating the people side of it. Google+ and Google Apps are coming closer and closer together. You now know where someone is and you know how they're connected to someone else. So your phone could prompt you to go introduce yourself. This has implications to sales.