Google Bypasses Tech Departments — Again

I've been toying around with Office Live recently -- Microsoft's web-based collaboration tool and today Google announces an addition to it's Google Apps package that will let people build Web sites where they can post anything from contact information to presentations to videos. Google says this will make it easier for workers to collaborate on projects.

Setting up sites like this used to require the information-technology department. In its press release, Google boasts that workers can set up a site without having to burden IT for support.

Beautiful. Over at the WSJ they describe it as being "a bit like showing a teenager how to sneak out of the house and calling it a way to go out without burdening parents by letting them know." Like workers are teenagers and IT the parents of rowdy kids. In fact it's more like the runner in the famous Apple 1984 tv commercial.

Where I do agree with wsj is that

"It also speaks volumes about Google?s strategy for breaking into businesses. The company is intentionally bypassing tech departments, which might object to Google hosting their business's sensitive information. Instead, the company is appealing directly to the average worker, who doesn't want to have to wait months for IT to have the time and money for their project. So while it will probably fill IT pros with visions of sensitive corporate data flowing out of their businesses, Google's business model isn't dependent on winning techies over. Google hopes that it will be enough to appeal to workers' desire to collaborate now.

In the same way that file sending services like YouSendIt or remote access tools like LogMeIn bypass IT departments, these Google and Microsoft tools are a blessing to workers and threaten to break the hold of overly cautious management everywhere.