Image via Wikipedia
If you’re not familiar with the term ‘Scylla and Charybdis‘ here’s a short primer…
Scylla and Charybdis were mythical sea monsters noted by Homer; later Greek tradition sited them on opposite sides of the Strait of Messina between Sicily and the Italian mainland. Scylla was rationalized as a rock shoal (described as a six-headed sea monster) on the Italian side of the strait and Charybdis was a whirlpool off the coast of Sicily. They were regarded as a sea hazard located close enough to each other that they posed an inescapable threat to passing sailors; avoiding Charybdis meant passing too close to Scylla and vice versa. According to Homer, Odysseus was forced to choose which monster to confront while passing through the strait; he opted to pass by Scylla and lose only a few sailors, rather than risk the loss of his entire ship in the whirlpool.
via en.wikipedia.org
We normally say ‘caught between a rock and a hard place’ but even The Police used the classical reference 41 seconds into the 1983 song ‘Wrapped around your finger‘…
What does all this have to do with Google? The advent of Google+ causes an interesting dilemma for Google Apps for Business users, namely, whether or not they need to revert to Gmail as a primary email address in order to become a full citizen of the Googleverse…
As a fan of both Gmail and Google Apps for Business [and a Google Authorized Solution Provider] it deeply disturbs me that a free Gmail account still has more power than a paid Google Apps for Business account. I mean, shouldn’t it be the other way around?
One of the things I love most about Gmail is that every account comes with access to over 100 free applications, many of which are best of class in the cloud computing space. Google Apps for Business has access to almost all of them; the one key technology that premium accounts are missing is the ability to create Google profiles. Google Apps for Business are actually paying customers, yet they do not have access to Profiles, which means no following people in Google Reader, no Buzz or Google+ to name a few. I recently confirmed this with Google Enterprise support…
“Hello Todd,
Thanks for your reply. It is true that at this time, Google Apps doesn’t support Profiles; however, we’re continually working to improve our offering based on the input we receive from our users.
Google started offering many services for Google Apps users last fall and our specialists are working diligently to enable the hand full of services that are not yet offered.
I’ve recorded your request and will submit it to the appropriate team for further consideration. I hope that you will be able to enjoy Google Profiles in the near future.
If you have any further questions about this issue, please let me know.
Sincerely,
Martin
Enterprise Support”
I also received a second, unsolicited reply with a slightly different angle on the response…
“Hello Todd,
Thanks for your message. I understand you would like to know if something is wrong with your Google Apps account.
Accounts on the new Google Apps Infrastructure can use many applications that Gmail accounts can, however Google Profiles is not one of them. The full list can be found at http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?answer=181865.
As you can read in this blogpost, following people in Reader is ‘powered by Google profiles’, so it too is not available for Google Apps accounts.
http://googlereader.blogspot.com/2009/07/following-liking-and-people-searching.html
Please let me know if you have any further questions.
Sincerely,
Martin
Enterprise Support”
So here are the horns of the dilemma — the ‘Scylla and Charybdis’ of my Google existence; if I want to be a full citizen of the Googleverse, I must use my free Gmail account. My paid Google Apps for Business account is still a second class citizen…
Related articles
- Google Plus Has One Huge Glaring Oversight: YouTube Integration (reelseo.com)
- Google+? Still a Minus for Google Apps Users (blogcritics.org)
