Google is best known for the online services and software it offers to everyday consumers---things like Google Search, Gmail, and the Android mobile operating system that runs so many smartphones and tablets---but for more than a decade, the tech giant has also offered services, software, and even hardware to the world's businesses, including everything from online applications such as Google Docs to sweeping cloud computing services such as Google Compute Engine. Today, the company unveiled a new identity for this growing part of its operation. It will now be known as Google for Work.
This group---which operates across Google's larger organization, essentially turning existing consumer products into business tools---was previously known as Google Enterprise. Meant to provide a shot in the arm for Google's efforts in the workplace, the new name reflects a larger change across the world of business software and hardware, where so many tools are finding their way into businesses through individual employees rather than dedicated IT workers. It's known as the "consumerization of IT."
"In many ways, work itself has changed in the last five years," Amit Singh, the president of the re-christened group, said this morning during a briefing with reporters at Google's San Francisco offices. "Mobile has come into play, and users are making choices, not just enterprise IT."
The name may take a while to stick, even inside Google. Rajen Sheth, the "father of Google Apps," who has worked with the group for a good ten years, mistakenly used the group's old name during the press briefing in San Francisco. But the ultimate aim is to make it easier for the average person to understand Google's efforts in this area.
All of the group's products will be tagged with the "for Work" moniker. Earlier this year, the company introduced Google Drive for Work, a version of its online file storage service that's intended for businesses, and now, all other Google business tools will follow suit. Google Apps, for instance, will become Google Apps for Work.
According to Singh, 60 percent of the Fortune 500 now paying for what are now called Google for Work services, and more than 1,800 customers are signing up for its latest product, Google drive for Work, each week. But the company believes its business tools provide a much larger opportunity for growth, and that's one of the reasons it's rolling out this new moniker. "We are in a very important phase of growth," Singh said of Google as a whole.
Sheth says that this move isn't just a change in brand. "What we're looking at here is more than just a name change," he said. "It's a mindset shift." In short, the company realizes this is quickly becoming a "user-first market," and it wants to make an even great effort to appeal to those end users. The word "enterprise," you see, doesn't mean that much to the average user. But "work" means a great deal.
