Does BT have any clue whatsoever about Google?

I was chatting a chap yesterday who is very high up in the operational/strategy part of British Telecom.  I was asking how they (or he) rated Google as competition, both in terms of fixed line (i.e. googletalk, broadband et al) and from a mobile / wireless perspective.

I asked what the chap thought of Google’s mail service, the ubiquity of information access — for example the ability to store and query your entire file index via Google remotely from Gmail Mobile. Or the ability to query and use almost 3 gig’s worth of email storage from your handset.

His answer?  Well, words to the effect of "Google Mail is a banned service at BT" so he hadn’t really had the opportunity to check out Google’s service. Ever.

I fully understand that hotmail, gmail and various other popular free email services are routinely banned by network administrators for all sorts of reasons, chief among them being ‘viruses’ and ‘security’ (i.e. preventing your employees from emailing commercially sensitive documents to their home emails).  Fair points.  But really, all they need to do is use a USB memory stick.

Anyway, I am flabbergasted at this discovery!  I didn’t believe him. You’re joking, I told him.  In this day and age?  With the innovation so fast? 

No one, it seems, at BT is able to check out, use or experiment with Gmail!

Goodness knows how they plan to even comprehend the monster that is Google, let alone compete or try and do business, if none of their staff can even look at and play around with Google’s PUBLIC technology (let alone sit dreaming wondering what Google are going to throw at the industry next).

I wonder if this is common policy at, say for example, Vodafone, or T-Mobile too?

Block it.

Ignore it.

It MIGHT go away.  At least in the short term….