Isn’t it wonderful that big, smart companies like Google, offer their fantastic products to people and companies at no charge? Before you toss out your favorite book of Milton “there is no such thing as free lunch”  Friedman, consider a loss of productivity which comes with muddling through half-baked applications which sometimes work. It is certainly hard to complain about things you don’t pay for? But we do pay in a currency of wasted time, aggravation, disruption in our thinking, and errors which we may or may not catch. Here is just a latest example.

The interesting question is exactly how much does it cost to Google applications users to beta test Google products. Until now, an enthusiasm of people who would try anything, as long as it is free, would make this question irrelevant because to them it is largely a “play”. However, as Google starts to move into Enterprise arena and partners with Salesforce.com to support business process is it capable to shake off it’s “free” attitudes and provide truly reliable and fully supported product? I have not tested any of their advanced, i.e. paid, applications myself - personally software testing is my next favorite thing after root canal, but my experiences with “free” offerings like Google Analytics, Documents and Spreadsheets were spotty at best.

I don’t want to single out Google, all “free” software offerings present the same problem - lack of reliability and absence of support, which is not unreasonable - just not “free”. 

There is an update to Inherent risk to globalization of BPM story. WSJ Business Technology editor Ben Worthen reports

Authorities in Dubai have impounded two ships they believe cut undersea communications cables earlier this year, disrupting Internet access in the Middle East and India in the process.

Great news! But apparent vulnerability and lack of redundancy keeps my concerns about Global service availability risks alive.

 Thanks to Jessica Hagy I can actually see how the Change works - not very fast.

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