Google, the Web 2.0 Startup Killer

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记不清什么时候我写了篇Google时代的生存法则，不正面面对来自Google的竞争是网络创业的基本生存之道。

过了这些时候发现这个现象变得更加严重了，Google触角伸到一个地方，倒下的公司就一片一片。转载一篇文章，供大家参考。

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I like to call Google “the search Goliath,” and, as it continues to push out “Office-like” applications, its mass is sucking up a lot of the web 2.0 oxygen.

The latest evidence comes from “Death of a Web 2.0 Startup.” Dharmesh Shah writes about the demise of Kiko, which put itself up for sale on eBay after more than a year of development. (via Google Blogoscoped)

Shah says, “It was one of the prototypical Web 2.0 companies (a free online calendar with AJAX, written in Ruby On Rails and funded by Y Combinator). It doesn’t get much more Web 2.0 than that.”

But “Google is the new Microsoft,” according to Shah. “Back in the day, lots of software companies made sure that their business models kept them out of the cross-hairs of Microsoft. They didn’t want to get stomped on. Today, though this is still the case in some sectors, Google is a much more formidable (and scary) competitor.”

I thought of Google on Tuesday, during the IBDNetwork’s “Under the Radar: Office 2.0″ event. Mike Arrington of TechCrunch presented four companies that offer one or more pieces of Microsoft Office functionality: CollectiveX, WetPaint, EchoSign and Zoho.

CollectiveX is designed for clubs and other such associations, providing web-based group calendars, emaib.asts, file sharing and social networking. WetPaint combines elements ofwikis, blogs, and social networks in tools for simple website creation.

EchoSign is an SaaS offering that automates the process of signing and managing electronic documents. It looked dead easy and useful. Having recently dealt with a real estate company that emails PDFs with cryptic names that I had to print out and fax back, I could see the utility. However, since I couldn’t get those people to even save the PDFs with intelligible file names, I can’t imagine how I could get them to switch to a new system. I may try this soon.
I also was impressed with Zoho, which provides web-based apps for presentation, word processing, spreadsheet and collaboration.

The company also offers utilities: Zoho Challenge to evaluate candidates; thandora, tag-based yellow pages; Site 24×7, a website monitoring service; and Zoho Polls.

Zoho Virtual Office includes email, documents, calendar; free for up to 10 users; after that, $295. CRM is free for up to 3 users, then starts at $12.

It’s not just about mimicking office apps on the web; Zoho also integrates the different apps seamlessly. Data posted in one app is immediately available to the others.

The audience picked Zoho as its top choice; the four panelists picked EchoSign.

Ishmael Ghalini, CEO of Intalio and one of the panelists who commented on the demos, also was impressed with Zoho. He said, “”in just 9 months you have something close to being a usable office suite. Ishmael Ghalini. “I think it’s exciting. Except vor Google and Microsoft, no other company has resour4ces to develop these. I think Zoho has resources to go all the way.” He thinks there’s plenty of money on the table from businesses that don’t want to buy Microsoft Office.

Hold on, now. Except for Google and Microsoft? Oh, them. The problem for Zoho and these other officelike startups is, good enough and free almost always beats better and $12.95. Throw in the global brand recognition of Google and Microsoft, and I don’t see an independent future for any of these companies.

Meanwhile, Google opened registration for Writely yesterday, after closing it when it acquired the company in March. (According to co-founder Sam Schillace, to move Writely onto Google’s infrastructure, it had to be ported from .NET to Java.)

Arrington says, “Now that Writely is publicly available in the Google suite, do these other vendors stand a chance? They certainly may, but yesterday’s surrender from calendar company Kiko - with a nod to Google Calendar - certainly makes you wonder.”

Back to Kiko. Richard White, Kiko’s UI designer, says the real problem was that the team got burned out and lost focus. But he admits, ” Kiko 2.0 launched on March 15th instead of January 15th. During that time two important things happened:

1. 30Boxes came out of nowhere and launched on Feb 14. Thus becoming the new internet calendar darling.
2. Screenshots of Google calendar were leaked and posted all over the internet.

The combination of those two events meant we got very little press coverage for our launch (or re-launch) since everyone was holding their breath for Google Calendar or fixated on 30boxes.”

Also, White also points out in his blog, height:1%, that adulation in the Technosphere doesn’t ensure widespread adoption. “Techie users are fickle, transient and demanding. You can spend all of your time implementing ATOM feeds and hCalendar export and never be the better for it.”

Zoho is evidently a project of AdventNet, a 10-year-old maker of super-geeky apps for enterprise IT, networking and telecom. AdventNet may want some of that web 2.0 sparkle for itself. And it’s certainly not betting the farm on Zoho.

Interestingly, Sridhar Svembu, who demoed Zoho at the IBDNetwork event, recently posted a favorite quote from marketing guru Seth Godin. The short version: It’s all a crapshoot.