The risk you take using anything from Google

Google is brutal when it comes to closing down services.

Take the recent closure of Google Reader. The company's decision to shut the popular feed reading service underlines the risk you take dealing with the company's products and services.

You never quite know where you stand with Google and its products from one day to the next.

Heaven knows there are things wrong with Microsoft. But the company tends to do the complete opposite. It continues to support older standards and formats long after they are, in effect, defunct. If anything, Microsoft goes too far. Its respect for its own technology legacy sometimes holds it back.

Commercial free products and services always come at a price

There’s an obvious danger relying on free software and services. The provider has no financial or contractual obligation to carry on delivering. Hardheaded commercial organisations like Google care little for moral obligations.

What you might see as essential business tools exist entirely at Google’s whim. The company can pull the plug at any moment.

This applies to Gmail and all the Google Drive apps. It applies to the Chrome browser, Google+, YouTube and Google Maps. All these services are free. Google could stop them all tomorrow if it wishes.

As I wrote earlier: sometimes free is too high a price.

Ringing alarm bells

Google’s high-handed approach to running its business sounds alarm bells. I wouldn’t put my faith in a paid Google Apps account.

Of course Google has a financial incentive to keep paid-for Google Apps running. It didn't have that incentive with Google Reader.

Yet app revenue is a tiny fraction of Google’s business. Google could leave thousands of users in the lurch without a blip on the company's annual result.

Closing Reader is a small annoyance, but it undermines trust in Google’s entire offering. A prudent business user can’t risk committing to such uncertainty.