Updating software in the middle of the work week during the workday tends to make system administrators much loathed in the eyes of their users. Google decided not to embrace that level of loathing for themselves.
Google Nixes Midweek Apps Fixes
Google Calendar had been scheduled for a little maintenance yesterday. The updates would have taken down the service for about 13 hours, including much of the workday when users of Google Apps probably need it the most.
News of the scheduled outage had not been well received, and if anything it bolster’s Google CEO Eric Schmidt’s argument that they aren’t trying to compete with Microsoft. If anyone has enforced the IT lesson of never doing major updates during a weekday, it’s the crew from Redmond.
ZDNet blogger David Berlind applauded Google for backing off on their planned Calendar outage for Thursday. A Google spokesperson told him the company will rethink their updating process:
(W)e are actively working on changes in routine maintenance procedures for other products on the Google Apps platform so updates such as these will either take place outside of peak hours or not impact our customers at all.
Berlind noted how Google could better serve those Google Apps customers with some administrative tools to get the word out about potential service disruptions.
The prospect itself of Google’s desire to do over a half-day’s worth of Calendar updating suggests more than some bug fixes. It sounds more like Google has an upgrade in mind for Calendar. The lack of integration between Calendar and Gmail has probably been a dealbreaker for people who wouldn’t mind using Google’s services instead of a desktop-based client.
Google’s proposed outage time could have represented the introduction of a new feature like a tightly-synced Calendar and Gmail option. That would be enough to get the cries of ‘Microsoft Office killer’ going again.
