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Tag: AppSheet

  • AppSheet Founder: Google ‘Slowly Ceased to Function’

    AppSheet Founder: Google ‘Slowly Ceased to Function’

    AppSheet founder Praveen Seshadri, who sold his company to Google Cloud in 2020, has harsh words for the tech giant.

    Seshadri posted a blog on Medium outlining his experience with Google after the company acquired his AppSheet. The founder seems to confirm what many investors and analysts have feared, painting a picture of a company that is floundering and has lost much of what made it special:

    I joined Google just before the pandemic when the company I had co-founded, AppSheet, was acquired by Google Cloud. The acquiring team and executives welcomed us and treated us well. We joined with great enthusiasm and commitment to integrate AppSheet into Google and make it a success. Yet, now at the expiry of my three year mandatory retention period, I have left Google understanding how a once-great company has slowly ceased to function.

    Seshadri then goes on to highlight the crossroads Google is at as Microsoft and its OpenAI-powered Bing threaten the company’s search dominance:

    It is a fragile moment for Google with the pressure from OpenAI + Microsoft. Most people view this challenge along the technology axis, although there is now the gnawing suspicion that it might be a symptom of some deeper malaise. The recent layoffs have caused angst within the company as many employees view this as a failure of management or a surrender to activist investors. In a way, this reflects a general lack of self-awareness across both management and employees.

    Read More: Google Won the Search Wars, but Can It Win the AI Search Wars?

    Ultimately, Seshadri boils Google’s issues down to four specific things:

    (1) no mission, (2) no urgency, (3) delusions of exceptionalism, (4) mismanagement.

    Interestingly, Seshadri makes a similar observation to the one we made here at WPN when we compared Microsoft and Google and drew the conclusion that Google has become risk-averse compared to its Redmond rival:

    Google can no longer seek success by avoiding risk. The path forward has to start with culture change and that has to start at the very top. Google’s senior executives should look at what Satya Nadella did at Microsoft and execute a similar playbook.

    Seshadri’s blog is a lengthy one, detailing far more than we can cover in this article. Nonetheless, it’s an outstanding read and illustrates why it increasingly seems that Google is in real trouble.

  • Google’s AppSheet Automation Now Available

    Google’s AppSheet Automation Now Available

    Google has made its low-code automation tool, AppSheet Automation, generally available.

    Google bought AppSheet, one of the leading no-code development platforms, at the beginning of 2020. The company has been building on that acquisition by developing AI-based automation to help organizations automate their business processes.

    Automation is more important than ever as companies and industries try to return to normal. According to Forrester, “automation has been a major force reshaping work since long before the pandemic; now, it’s taking on a new urgency in the context of business risk and resiliency… As we emerge from the crisis, firms will look to automation as a way to mitigate the risks that future crises pose to the supply and productivity of human workers.”

    Google is clearly working to position AppSheet Automation as the platform of choice for companies looking to improve their automation.

    Last fall, we announced early access for AppSheet Automation, a significant addition to AppSheet, our no-code development platform, that leverages Google AI to make it easier to automate business processes. Today, as part of our mission to further support the future of work, we are making AppSheet Automation generally available (GA). AppSheet Automation empowers even those without coding skills to reshape their own work with powerful new features including smarter extraction of structured data from documents and compatibility with a wider range of data sources like Google Workspace Sheets and Drive.

    Google says companies around the world are already using AppSheet. AppSheet Automation should open up important new possibilities.

  • Google Shutting Down App Maker

    Google Shutting Down App Maker

    Google has announced it is shutting down App Maker, its low-code development environment.

    App Maker was unveiled in 2016 and provided a way for IT departments, developers and enthusiasts to create apps to improve G Suite workflows. App Maker users will need to find another solution, however, as the development environment is nearing the end of its life.

    In the blog post announcing the change, Google said existing apps made with App Maker will continue to work, and critical bugs will be addressed, but the tool is no longer under active development. Effective April 15, 2020, developers will no longer be able to create new applications and effective January 19, 2021, all App Maker apps will stop working.

    The company says there is no migration path to other platforms, including any of its own tools. In the meantime, Google encourages app developers to start recreating their apps using AppSheet, a similar product the company acquired in mid-January. Of course, given the abandonment of App Maker, with no easy migration path, Google may have trouble convincing users to trust another of the company’s solutions.

  • Google Acquires AppSheet, Leading No-Code Development Platform

    Google Acquires AppSheet, Leading No-Code Development Platform

    Google has announced its acquisition of “AppSheet, a leading no-code application development platform used by a number of enterprises across a variety of industries.”

    Custom applications are an excellent way for businesses to meet their needs and adapt to an ever-evolving landscape. As Google points out in their post, however, not all businesses have the resources to have a large, in-house development team. No-code or low-code solutions are an excellent way to address that shortcoming and AppSheet is one of the best available.

    The platform uses a database, spreadsheet or form to build a mobile app. According to the company site, “AppSheet will automatically generate an app by using the data in your column header (i.e. the first row of your spreadsheet) as fields. These fields determine how the app captures or displays data.” Once the data is pulled in, the platform’s tools provide a way to alter how the app looks and behaves.

    “AppSheet complements Google Cloud’s strategy to reimagine the application development space with a platform that helps enterprises innovate with no-code development, workflow automation, application integration and API management as they modernize their business processes in the cloud,” wrote Amit Zavery, Google Cloud VP of Business Application Platform. “AppSheet’s ability to power a range of applications—from CRM to field inspections and personalized reporting—combined with Google Cloud’s deep expertise in key verticals, will further enable digital transformation across industries like financial services, manufacturing, retail, healthcare, communication and media & entertainment.”

    AppSheet currently works with AWS, Box, Dropbox, Office 365, Salesforce and other cloud hosted databases. Both Google’s announcement and an announcement on AppSheet’s site reassures users AppSheet will remain cross-platform.