Some hours ago Gmail was down and everybody started to complain. Now is up and running and people are still complaining. This made me think that how can business and organizations rely on Gmail for business, if it goes down for around 6 hours as it did today.

Google today provides 99.99% of uptime for Gmail for Business, which translate into approximately of 53 minutes of down time. However this outage wasn’t of an hour, it was more than 6 times the guarantee they offer. This pain the current customer suffer and others don’t wish to suffer, has a partial solution: configure your account of offline use using gears, but still we have the problem of sending. Here is the thing: it is impossible for a service like Gmail to be up 100%, the whole internet and systems are to complicated, there is always a point of failure somewhere. However we could mitigate this points of failure by “not having all our eggs in one basket”, which translates to:

A third party providing a solution (generally in a server hosted by the consumer) that serves as backup for the services. For example company XYZ will host in their server room, a backup of Gmail. So ,if we have the outage we had today, the business can still read and send emails, because it doesn’t fully depend on Gmail. The same principle applies to all services that reside “in the cloud” i.e CRM, Office Suite.

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Now, this is not an easy task: to develop such backup servers, especially when the providers (such as Salesforce, Google, Microsoft) don’t have  support for such services through a API. Also, In the case of email, a third party will have to implement a spam filter and SMTP server for the Backup for Business Gmail to work. Then we have the issue of support to the backup and how to seamlessly change the customers from the web based.  And then there is, of how much to see such solution and if a there is actually a demand for such products.

Still, like Travis (a Ausie I met at the Laundry room) said: lack of resources can lead to an opportunity. Right now, we lack the resources to have 100% uptime in our services on the cloud, and the need (or pain) is there, since we now started to depend on them and get outraged when is not fixed at the moment we snap our fingers. The question is: How? Certainly I will love to find out.

Yesterday, I was looking for some information regarding the “Shrink Volume” Windows Vista utility, and found an article in Lifehacker on dual boot Vista and Windows 7. There in the Opinions section, is a post titled “In 2009, Microsoft Still Underestimates the Web”. The post is a constructive criticism, on Microsoft failure in distributing the Windows 7 public beta Sunday mourning. The author attributes the failure, to Microsoft not taking the web more seriously and being clueless about “how to do stuff online”. That might be true, however lets look it from a different perspective, how about the cause being that Microsoft doesn’t understand its customers and thinks is still 1999.

Microsoft is a Juggernaut in the Software space, like it or not, and can do whatever they want. If they want to waste millions on trying to overtake Google in search, they can do it because they are Microsoft. Their ad campaigns are nothing compare to Apple, but they can spend the millions, get criticized and at the end it creates the buzz they are looking for. And if they want to release a beta of Windows 7 on such date, we will download it, even if we don’t like Microsoft.

This Software Juggernaut failed to understand the Windows 7 customers. I’m not talking about those that have Windows in their machines, or average the user that just wants thing to work, but the ones that want to go with the trouble of trying and testing Windows 7. We are not in those days when you can release a crappy OS like Windows Me and not get a backlash that might generate an effect on revenue. This is not 1999, when people voice wasn’t loud enough to be heard all over the planet. Now with broadband, mobile internet, Social Media and all Web 2.0, nobody is safe.

People that download Windows 7 Beta are early adopters and innovators that want to try Windows 7. They want to test it and see if they can find cool features or report a bug. While in this process, they will start a conversation by blogging, tweeting, recording videos and even distribute the copy they got on torrent sites. Microsoft failed to understand who these crowd is and why they want (and need) to download Windows 7. This are the customers of Windows 7 right now and right now, the number is bigger than it was 10 years ago.

By stating that Microsoft doesn’t understand the Internet is like saying “we” don’t understand China. The internet is not just a bunch of look a likes, in front of the computer, connected 24/7. We are people, with different feelings, ideas, ambitions and goals. We connect with each other, based on sociological patterns, using  the Internet as a tool. Western world looks at Chinese in the same way, we think they are the same because they look similar and act similar (the irony is that hey also think we all look the same). However they are a culturally rich and diverse country, with various languages and ethnic groups, with different ideas and dreams. Yes, they all live in China as most of us “live” on the Web, but that doesn’t make us all the same.

Any company that wants to reach its customers through the Internet, has to understand that the dynamics are the same if they wanted to reach a community in flesh and bones. How many times a has the power of a community, country, city or group of people has been underestimated ? How many times, have we been surprised on how people behave in unexpected ways, in regards to specific products, services and events? The social interaction that is natural to us, magnifies and accelerates on the Internet, which is still sociological in nature. That is why, by trying to “understand the Internet” as a whole companies, already have lost the battle, instead they have to look at it granularly.

Neither Microsoft or Google understand this, however they where both lucky to become dominant players in their spaces. Most people have limited choices for operating systems, as well as advertising platform on the net. That doesn’t mean one understands its customers better than the other. Google is less hierocratical than Microsoft, that is why it looks like they are more upbeat with trends and setting the tone. Also that Google’s rise to fame, was part of the “Web 2.0 era” and are seen as more “cool”.

The cause of Microsoft problems is Microsoft itself, from their leadership to their culture. In the case of Google, Google itself will be the cause of their future problems.

Failure to Launch Serve

Microsoft got some heat because weren’t prepared to handle the spike of downloads.  Yes, its Microsoft fault because they initially created the scarcity by announcing that only 2.5 million downloads will be available, however they got their act together, fixed the problem and extended the period of availability until the 24th of January.

My question is how do you prepare for such demand.. or event? How do you know how much your current setup can handle it? Its kind of difficult if you don’t have the right tools and money to find out (in the case of Microsoft is their culture). Some people might suggest, “hey why not use BitTorrent?” The issue with using BitTorrent is that Microsoft are against those networks and have shown their feelings toward trackers and index sites. So, uploading it to Mininova or The Pirate Bay is out of the question. They could use Mininova distribution service, which requires the content to be free. The other alternative is to setup up their own trackers and apparently, they don’t have the competence or interest in using Bit Torrent as a distribution tool. That will be interesting, however their culture will not permit it. So they are stuck with using the traditional way, hosting and managing themselves. Maybe, like I said before, Microsoft is jut to old and doesn’t get it.

All this problems aren’t that bad for Microsoft, they create some buzz, people get interested and they get feedback for free. Also, is not a new thing, its documented that other companies had their problems in the past i.e. Paramount with the launch of the Ironman Blueray live, Apple with their Mobile Me downtime. Even Salesforce which is a company that core business is to “serve” and offer reliable cloud CRM, had some downtime.

The bottom line is that “Serving” is not an easy task and shouldn’t be taken for granted. We will continue to see more service outages, failures, etc. because they think it just takes to put a server online and viola. Companies need to realize that they need to understand the customers they are targeting and communicated with them. You will be surprise how responsive and understating people are, if you provide constant communication to them. They know problems will rise once in a while and will forgive that. However what they will not forgive is that the company that “Serves”, doesn’t prepare for such p
ossible problems and doesn’t communicate efficiently.

Its similar to a relationship with your partner or spouse… communication, communication, communication.