TECHnalysis Research Blogs
TECHnalysis Research president Bob O'Donnell publishes commentary on current tech industry trends every week at LinkedIn.com in the TECHnalysis Research Insights Newsletter and those blog entries are reposted here as well. In addition, those columns are also reprinted on Techspot and SeekingAlpha.

He also writes a regular column in the Tech section of USAToday.com and those columns are posted here. Some of the USAToday columns are also published on partner sites, such as MSN.

He also writes a 5G-focused column for Forbes that can be found here and that is archived here.

In addition, he also occasionally writes guest columns in various publications, including RCR Wireless, Fast Company and engadget. Those columns are reprinted here.

November 13, 2025
The Google Enterprise Story Finally Feels Real

By Bob O'Donnell

An interesting thing hit me as I listened to a variety of Google executives making a slew of new business and enterprise-focused announcements at their Chrome Summit in NYC: I started to feel like I was at a Microsoft event. As strange as that may sound, I mean it in the best possible way for both companies. I’m used to hearing Microsoft tell a comprehensive, business-focused story that highlights not only important new functionality, but the inherent security and operational integration factors that enterprise IT departments depend on to bring new products and services into their environments.

In Google’s case, while they have been talking about and shipping enterprise-focused products and capabilities for several years, the company hasn’t always had the kind of comprehensive, business-focused perspective that IT professionals look for. Instead, it’s always felt a bit like a bunch of interesting technologies coming from several distinct groups delivered as a series of point products that are targeted at enterprise IT—but weren’t always a great fit.

However, at the Chrome Summit (an event that frankly would have been more accurately titled Google for Enterprise), Google presented a broad-reaching, unified story demonstrating that they really get what modern enterprise IT departments need. Under the theme of “Connected work experiences with AI at the core” the company highlighted how it can bring together consistent experiences across multiple platforms and devices and use its Gemini AI capabilities to serve as the core connective tissue between them all.

Importantly, the company also highlighted an impressive range of new partnerships with big names in enterprise security and device trust/authentication, including companies like Cisco, CrowdStrike, Okta, Omnissa, Zscaler and more. This is critical because it reflects Google’s more open willingness to integrate their products and services into existing enterprise IT architectures as opposed to thinking that they could (or should) do it all on their own. While one could argue that new partnerships aren’t that big of a big deal, they definitely added to the sense that Google now has a more realistic and mature perspective on how to work their way into the enterprise.

What’s fascinating is that it all seems to have come together quickly and for several important reasons. First, the company has been on an absolute tear when it comes to releasing new products. From the Gemini Enterprise launch just a few weeks back to yesterday’s news (and even the Private Cloud Compute news from earlier this week), it’s clear that the company is working hard to maintain the frenetic pace of change that the AI revolution has brought to us. In addition, after many years of creating what were supposed to be a whole bunch of big important initiatives, only to be discontinued, have their names changed, etc., the company is finally demonstrating consistency with Gemini. Its success and its applicability to so many areas has served as a rallying cry to bring what seemed to be previously very disparate groups (and efforts) together. Finally, the success of Google Cloud in enterprise has also brought a new sense of respect and trust that arguably serves as a halo for all the company’s enterprise efforts.

In terms of capabilities, Google also spent a lot of time focusing on the very tactical benefits for enterprise users. In the Chrome browser, for example, the company talked about new security and threat detection capabilities, data loss prevention (DLP) tools, easier integration with SecOps tools and more. New Android Enterprise features include capabilities that make it easier for IT to create device trust solutions as well as manage phones, tablets and even new devices like the Samsung Galaxy XR headset, which was built in conjunction with Google.

Arguably the biggest news of the event was the announced “relaunch” of Cameyo, coming November 17. Cameyo, which Google purchased last year, provides the ability to run legacy Windows applications within a Chrome browser completely independent of the underlying operating system. It uses a form of Virtual Application Delivery (VAD) to essentially convert these legacy applications into Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) that run within the browser. Importantly, it can do this without needing to maintain a costly and confusing VDI infrastructure. Plus, Google took advantage of the advanced security capabilities now built into the Chrome Browser—for things like security protections and controls---as well as a Gemini AI overlay to bring more intelligence to these apps. The net result is a solution that not only lets companies much more easily deal with the huge load of legacy applications they still run, but do so in a more robust and potentially automatable way. It’s yet another example of the more down-to-earth, real-world problem-solving capabilities that Google demonstrated throughout the event.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a Google event if there were some focus on new devices and capabilities as well. To that end, the company talked up its new Pixel 10 phones and some of the agentic capabilities it’s bringing to them via Magic Cue, its predictive personal assistant capability. Because Magic Cue can—with your permission, of course—access things like your emails, calendars and other information on your Pixel 10 phone, it can smartly insert itself into text threads, help you find information in context and much more. The company also showed off the forthcoming Google Beam 3D video communication and virtual meeting system/display, which HP is expected to bring to market in March of next year. Finally, the company also teased some amazing new work that the DeepMind division is doing on new types of models and AI applications.

In the end, Google did a solid job of demonstrating how they can control every layer of an AI solution stack from semiconductors through cloud infrastructure to devices, operating systems, productivity applications, AI models and more. More than simply listing all these aspects, they also showed how they’re starting to integrate them together in ways that can offer meaningful benefits to IT professionals. It’s a story that finally feels like it’s coming to life.

Here’s a link to the original column:

Bob O’Donnell is the president and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a market research firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on LinkedIn at Bob O’Donnell or on Twitter @bobodtech.