Google as corporate platform

At the start of October 2009, Thoughtworks became a customer of Google Apps. Although we have heard a wide range of opinions about the user experience offered by Google Mail, Calendar and Documents, the general consensus is that our largely consultant workforce is happy with the move. The next step that we as a company are looking to embrace is Google as a corporate platform beyond the standard Google Apps; in particular we are evaluating the use of Google App Engine for a number of internal systems initiatives. Google App Engine, Amazon EC2 and Salesforce.com all claim to be Cloud providers, yet each of their offerings differ. The Cloud fits into a broad categorization of service offerings split out into Infrastructure as a Service (e.g. Amazon EC2 and Rackspace), Platform as a Service (e.g. App Engine) and Software as a Service (e.g. Salesforce.com). In some cases, providers may span multiple service categories, further diluting the Cloud as a label. Regardless, the value of infrastructure, platform and software in the cloud is difficult to question and although many offerings have hit bumps in the road, they certainly have earned their position on the radar.