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Collaboration integration problem for Google?

I was keen to try out Google Wave now that it had been launched for Google Apps. My domain is registered with Google Apps as I didn’t want the gmail.com extension and Google has so far appeared a bit more conservative regarding the degree of testing expected of their end users (i.e., Google Buzz is not available yet).

But it is becoming clear that Google is slowly creating an integration problem for their collaboration tools. Consider this:

  • All the Google services are hosted in a Google Apps and a ‘normal’ Google Account version. I use a mix of services from both sets and my browser regularly gets confused due to two sets of incompatible login sessions – i.e., it takes me to the “wrong” service with no way of merging or sharing data.
  • Google Calendar doesn’t appear integrated with Google Wave’s todo, meeting etc functionality – why not?
  • Google Docs can be embedded inside a Google Wave, but why can’t a wave be stored as a Google Doc?
  • The Google Doc and Wave collaboration features appear to be an almost complete overlap, yet they are not even remotely compatible.

Google Wave is very very clever concept, but unfortunately the world is using email – to lure people across, I think a much better integration between those two worlds is required (e.g., Gmail and Wave).

One Comment Post a comment
  1. They have now fixed that problem… my Google App account is now the same as the Google Account… Signing in at gmail.com with my @johnbrondum.com email will redirect me to the correct Gmail inbox…

    Wednesday, 1st June, 2011

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