It seems that a requirement of every blog writer these days is to speculate about Google’s intentions with Gmail. My speculation is that Google is going to release a Gmail Appliance in 2005, and it get’s better.
So we know that Google is going to be entering the email business with Gmail. Currently Gmail is in a private beta program with existing blogger users. I wonder if Orkut is next?
There has been a bunch of fuss about Gmail. First the fuss was about the 1Gb storage for accounts. Then there was the little issue of Google never really deleting email from Gmail, which caused a bunch of privacy concerns. Tim O’Reilly then posted Nine Reasons Why It’s Bogus about those privacy concerns. He then went on to talk about the importance of the architecture behind Google, and how it is an “Internet OS”. Jeremy Zawodny then cooled the flame Tim had started closing his post with the following quote:
And if we’re going to beat the Internet OS horse drum some more, how about something that actually fits into what one might think of as an infrastructure service rather than an end-user application?
Now we are starting to get closer to understanding Google’s intentions. In the past year Google has bought the blogging service Blogger, social networking service Orkut, and announced Gmail. I think I know what they are up to, and to call it a “Gmail Appliance” is too limiting.
Last month (March, 2004) Eugene Eric Kim released a paper online that will be in the May 2004 issue of Dr. Dobbs Journal. A Manifesto for Collaborative Tools outlines how groupware should take some notes from the Semantic Web. The worlds need technology to fill the needs of the semantic web.
The groups need to be able to be loosely defined or strictly defined (invitation only)? We need to be able to form and disolve groups effortlessly. We need to be able to have groups and individuals that are close to us while others are more on the pheripheral. Social networks do this (orkut). We need to be able to share documents and content with members of our group(s) and be able to revise, comment, reference, and build relationships between these documents. Blogs do this (blogger). We need to be able to communicate with any combination of groups and individuals easily. Email does this (gmail). We need to be able to find what we need when we need it. Search engines do this (google). And we need to be able to do this from anywhere with a variety of devices (internet).
So, while I am pretty sure that there will be a new appliance from google for enterprise semantic web needs, I doubt it will be the Gmail Appliance (too limiting). Maybe they should just call it HAL 9000.
By the way, Google decided to delete email from their servers when the user hit the delete button. It was a curious “feature” to have in the first place. I think it is a further indication of Google’s intentions. That is the kind of “feature” pointy-haired bosses will line up for.
-Jackson
