Is The Google Bamboozle Evolving?

As we have previously discussed (Google Bamboozles Microsoft, Bamboozle Update, Bamboozle Update 2), Google continues to give Microsoft fits with its bamboozle attack on Microsoft Office. This attack is intended to divert some Microsoft resources away from improving search to instead defend Office against the Google threat without taking significant Google resources and without generating much revenue. This is amplified in my book, Attacking The Crown Jewels, which also describes how a bamboozle attack may evolve:

Bamboozle attacks can evolve into classic or proxy attacks. Sometimes the bamboozler discovers serious revenue potential in the attack weapon and decides to make a full commitment to the market, a classic attack. In other cases, the bamboozler sees an opportunity to spin off or sell the attack weapon to new owners that they are convinced they can influence to continue the attack for them as a proxy attack.

Perhaps we are seeing the beginning of this metamorphosis. First, at its shareholder's meeting earlier this month, Google CEO Eric Schmidt announced that the company now has a tag line: "Search, Ads and Apps." This is the first time the company has formally given applications equal billing with search and advertising. Then on Monday the Wall Street Journal reported that Google and Salesforce.com were discussing teaming up in some fashion. One possibility of such a hookup is to tie Google's applications to the Salesforce CRM suite. This could jump-start Google applications as a serious alternative to Microsoft Office and Exchange in the business world.

Salesforce, the poster child for on-demand business applications, would be a perfect ally for Google's "office in the clouds" applications, from instant messaging to email to word processing to calendaring to spreadsheets to ...

Copyright © 2007 Philip Bookman

Technorati: Business Strategy, Strategic Planning, Google, Salesforce