Google announced yesterday that they are going to sell a “premier edition” of their hosted web applications. This is widely seen as part of Google’s plan to win over Microsoft Office users. My guess is that for a lot of small businesses Google Apps will do the trick. Microsoft has much to worry about these days.

But Google has something to worry about as well. If you go to Google’s Corporate Information page you can find the “10 things Google has found to be true.” And thing number 2 is “It’s best to do one thing really, really well.” In the beginning that one thing Google did really, really well was Search. In the last few years Google moved on to doing Internet Advertising really, really well. In the last few months Google has tried to extend their advertising network to video, radio and newspapers.

But now Google’s getting into an entirely different business, with different technology and business problems. They are trying to do two things really, really well. And it doesn’t work that way.

When Google Apps were free they avoided the headache that come with supporting business users and storing mission critical data. After all you can’t complain about a free service. And you’d be foolish to store critical personal and business data on the servers of a free service. But now that Google is chasing after Microsoft Office they will be faced with all sorts of distracting problems: Security, uptime, user training, keeping features competitive, etc… These problems will end up distracting Google from Search and Internet Advertising just as video games and music players have distracted Microsoft from operating systems and productivity applications.

You don’t need to read Plato to know that breaking your own philosophy it not a good thing.

Tags: yahoo, john pavley

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