Google’s Teamwork Summit and the Enterprization of Google

Two weeks ago, Backupify attended Google’s annual partner summit, Teamwork – our first as Datto. During the Teamwork event, Google’s partners from around the globe had the opportunity to hear more about Google’s channel ecosystem (more about this in my next post). Now, no event of this importance would be complete without some seriously big product announcements. Amit Singh, President of Google for Work and Education presented the latest and greatest product enhancements which got me thinking about the enterprization of Google. For example, here are some of the products that were discussed during the summit:

Inbox for Work

Google’s Inbox is now ready for Google for Work users. The task-focused approach to email that was initially launched for consumers in December for limited release to invited users is now available to Google Apps for Work customers.

Android for Work

The big news coming out of the Teamwork summit was the general availability of a new, more secure version of Android. This version introduces the security and management features (such as policy control or EMM Integration) that organizations were missing to make Android a viable option for the enterprise. With Android for Work, users can now separate business apps from personal apps, helping them use their Android device for both work and personal use.

Now, let’s take a step back. A lot has been said about consumerization, this reorientation of products and services designed for the individual consumer. However, consumerization assumes that the product or service was originally designed for the enterprise. In the early to mid 80’s for example, the PC, VCR and fax entered the consumer market after initially being available in the business world.

What we’ve experienced since the early 2000s is quite the opposite. We’re now seeing the “Enterprization” (and by the way, I’m open to other neologisms). Here, a product or service is originally designed for the consumer market and is then enhanced and adapted to be released to the Enterprise market.

Google is the epitome of a company whose success has always relied on the consumer market, whether this relates to traditional search or ads, or even more recent services such as Google Express. More and more, these services are being introduced to the enterprise. One can see that the consumer market serves as a test bed for those products to generate interest from early adopters before being released to the Enterprise market.

This is exactly what is happening with Android. With nearly one billion units deployed worldwide, Android is experiencing tremendous adoption in the consumer market. This consumer market share allows Google to automatically capture an important share of the business market now that Android for Work is available.

Backupify (now Datto) took a very similar path. Initially the company’s objective was to back up personal data from social networks. The focus quickly shifted to provide similar cloud to cloud backup solutions for the enterprise, supporting Google Apps as the first SaaS app. Six years later, we now support Salesforce.com and have a number of other SaaS applications in beta or in development. With the recent acquisition by Datto, the enterprization continues. Companies can now turn to Datto for a total data protection platform.

In addition to Google and Backupify, what other companies have made the successful transition from consumer to enterprise?