XLRI wins Google’s “App”titude Challenge..100+ colleges to implement Google Apps [Lateral Thinking]
Google announced App-titude competition for colleges in August 2008 and the entire idea was to encourage students, faculty 
members and alumni from all engineering and management schools throughout India to move their institutions to Google Apps platform.
Google received close to 6,000 sign-ups and based on evaluation (product usage), XLRI was declared the winner.
As a result of the challenge, more than 100 colleges across India are now in the process of implementing Apps in their institutions. – blog
Power of Lateral Thinking
From sales/business development perspective, bureaucracy in educational institutions is one of the biggest challenge in closing the deal. Convincing IT team as well as college management is an uphill task and I am sure Google failed in it’s earlier attempt to penetrate into colleges.
B-schools/Engineering colleges love to compete with each other and Google just used this hook to get it’s App inside the system.
“App”titude challenge surely worked for them – simple math will tell you how much of money Google saved with this challenge – and most importantly, 100+ deals were closed in just a few months (I am sure a godo chunk of tier-2 colleges would have participated in this challenge as well).
Above all, getting access to ‘impressionable mind’ is what Google Apps Free Education Edition is trying to do – so that the next generation of users will not be hooked onto MS Office, but to Google Apps.
Smart strategy?
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Related posts:
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- Google Apps and SalesForce Integration – That’s what the SMEs ordered for
- Zoho’s take on Google Apps/SalesForce Integration. Should platforms be Open-for-all?
- Zoho Projects Integrates with Google Apps
- Google Launches Apps Marketplace – 80% Revenue Share with Developers
About the author - Ashish Sinha is a Startup Mentor/Product Strategy Coach, and the founder/chief editor of pluGGd.in.
He has launched/managed couple of products (consumer as well as enterprise) in US and India, and now consults with startups/small businesses on their product/media strategy. He can be reached at: ashish (at) pluGGd.in [+91 98452 06443]
But...
Your Prediction is coming correctly
you said : “Do remember that Google is targeting colleges and schools by giving away it’s apps for free (which will now include Chrome) – in order to catch them young (and hook them forever). If it’s successful, the next generation will read Microsoft in history books only.“
I guess this is a overstreached prediction. MS isn’t only about emails.
Both MS and Google have their strongholds in different areas. While MS is way behind Google in seach, Google is nowhere close to replacing the office suite.
Anand – Google Apps isnt about emails. Its about the entire office suite.
And FYI – Google and zoho have replaced MS Office in several corporates: pluggd.in/category/online-office