A Tale of Two Clouds: Google and Microsoft

Binary Tree, a leading provider of cross-platform messaging migration and coexistence software and a Microsoft Certified Gold Partner, has helped over 5,000 customers around the world to migrate more than 20,000,000 users. In this guest blog, Binary Tree Co-CEO Henry Bestritsky shares his thoughts on Google’s enterprise capabilities based on his company's nearly 20 year experience.

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us….”

-- Charles Dickens, A Tale of Two Cities

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times: Leaving Google
Last year, Binary Tree left the Google Enterprise Partner program. I continue to get questions on why we exited the program. Well, several critical factors influenced our decision, but media perceptions and market hype could not hide the fact that we were not seeing customer demand for Google in the enterprise.

We did a very thorough analysis of the market, Google’s enterprise capabilities, and what platform we thought business customers would choose before deciding to leave the Google Enterprise Partner program. We made a decision that made sense then, and doubling down on our relationship with Microsoft, continues to delight customers. I haven’t seen any indications from Google over the past year that they have any more commitment to the enterprise market, and I’m not the only one who thinks so (see this article). Binary Tree’s business customers demanded a solution that moved them to a platform that was committed to their business first. Period.

If you want further proof of our commitment, go to the Binary Tree site and check out E2E Complete.  I am not offering a shameless plug, but to make it clear that without Microsoft’s commitment to the enterprise this product would not exist. E2E Complete is able to effortlessly manage the entire migration of users from Exchange 2003 to 2010 on-premises or Office 365. The entire migration can be run remotely and the users have a variety of options to make the migration completely painless and error-free, even if you want to migrate 20,000 users all over the world. From IntraOrg to InterOrg, from Public Folder migrations to Free/Busy Coexistence, E2E Complete supports it all.  

Many users are still on Exchange 2003 and this is what Google is after. E2E Complete was designed specifically to fight this threat. Take a look at Google Migration options and then E2E Complete. It’s like the Marriage of Figaro and Microsoft is Bugs Bunny while Google is Elmer Fudd.

We had everything before us:  Moving to the new platform
Some like to tout Google’s list of recently released features as proof of their enterprise innovation. Playing catch-up doesn’t count as innovation and certainly doesn’t mean instant enterprise credibility. Google has assumed the position of cloud email pioneers but many telco providers and ISP’s have provided this service for years, in many cases on Microsoft technology. As I recall, Microsoft had web-based email back with Exchange 5.5, which was released in 1999. In terms of capabilities, in the last year Google introduced the ability to sort email by sender or subject.  Most email users often sort by sender to find a particular email quickly. It seems Google was more focused on changing the way people work rather than making it better, more efficient. With the need to rapidly catch-up, we were challenged by Google’s chaotic release of “features” and lack of a clear roadmap. Our customers need better planning and forethought than Google can provide. 

It was the epoch of belief: Partnering is not just a logo on your website
Our initial interaction with Google was interesting (some may even say “innovative”). Essentially, we made initial contact with the Google Messaging team; a week later I was in Mountain View, and a week after that we were an Enterprise Partner without any certifications. Sounds cool right? But think about it, this is a new technology that is delivered and managed by a new player on the market. Without a deep understanding of Google’s direction, what was my value proposition to the Enterprise customer as a partner? 

Google’s ad-hoc addition of features to its messaging also presented obstacles for us as the partner. Our solution would need to be constantly updated as the new capabilities were rolled out.  Even as an Enterprise Partner we didn’t always have visibility to what was around the corner. Partners and customers often looked for answers on the message boards; this was not a great approach. We quickly realized that it is impossible to support the Gmail platform when all of the APIs are in beta and constantly change. Getting support was excruciating and our confidence soon turned to disappointment.

It always worried us that Google’s senior leadership never mentioned enterprise as a business priority. That is still true today. Like anyone else running a business, I can tell you that my customers are my number one priority. This is something that all customers should demand. But when the services you are purchasing aren’t a priority and don’t contribute to your vendor’s bottom line, how do you know they will be there tomorrow?

Also, I have never heard Google leadership talk about enterprise partners. It’s not that I needed to hear our name uttered by Larry Page, but to do what we do, Binary Tree relies on a healthy ecosystem of system integrators and service providers to drive our business forward. With Microsoft, we have a worldwide, highly specialized community of partners that can deliver the value of our product to our mutual customers.

It was the spring of hope
Binary Tree has migrated over 20 million email users over the last 18 years. The enterprises we help migrate are complex organizations and deployment flexibility is an absolute necessity. We have migrated customers like Coca-Cola Enterprises, Dow Chemical, and Godiva Chocolatier to Microsoft Online Services. With Microsoft, Binary Tree customers have the flexibility of moving to an all-cloud solution, on-premises server, or a combination of the two.

So are we happy with our decision to double down with Microsoft and leave the Google Enterprise Partner program? Yes. Binary Tree will continue fighting Google by using E2E Complete and migrating company after company onto Microsoft Exchange 2010 and Office 365 with a stream of happy CEOs behind us. Our customers, regardless of size, tell us they demand the rich features they already have when they move to the cloud and the choice was easy, Microsoft.  

Henry Bestritsky

Co-CEO, Binary Tree