Open Letter to Google by Vishal Shah

Kind attention:
rnSanjayrnGupta, Amit Kumar, MayoorirnKango and the product team of Google India Private Limited

With utmost disappointment, as an MSME champion, Irnam writing this open letter to Apex Executive Team at Google India. In Januaryrn2017, my fandom started for Google when Sundar Pichai announced that GooglernIndia was eying at enabling 51 million MSMEs of India on their digitalrnpursuit. I sensed the empathy of Google towards MSMEs of India when it releasedrna Survey in Economic Times suggesting Two-Thirds of MSMEs in India arernundergoing loss. I experienced my fan moment when SIDBI: Google tied up to support MSMEs with 110rnCrore corpus as crisis response post-covid situations.

What I have witnessed in the last four months has shatteredrnmy fandom for Google. It is about shifting gears from empathy to apathy.rnIt is about bluntly executing unfair, coercive,rnand monopolistic trade practices in Indian markets, ironicallyrnharming the Indian MSMEs the most on their path to recovery.rnSuch an arbitrary policy change will force the Indian MSMEs tornpay an additional INR 1500 Cr to INR 5000 Cr yearly. The netrnpresent value of such additional yearly outflow could be between INR 15000 Crrnto 50000 Cr.

It will be a massive blow to Indian MSMEs. Most importantly,rnthe Indian MSMEs will not realize any value from this additional yearlyrnoutflow. By discontinuing unfair, coercive, and monopolisticrnpractices, Google can reestablish itself, as Sundar Pichai projected in 2017.

Laymen Example of Problem

Before I explain the real problem, I would like to give arnlayman’s example for better understanding. Say, I have booked 25 rooms at arnhotel for my guests for a family wedding event. Some rooms are taken on singlernoccupancy, some on double occupancy, and some on triple occupancy. Accordingly,rnthe tariff is paid for. The guests have moved in with their luggage andrnvaluables. Now suddenly, the hotel manager declares that the tariff for triplernoccupancy rooms will be raised by 400%. Not only that, but since you have takenrnone room for triple occupancy, you must take triple occupancy for all 25 roomsrnand pay 400% more tariff for all the rooms. Hold on; it’s not over. He furtherrndeclares that if you disagree and decide to move to another hotel, you can takernonly one bag daily at a time and pay the charges (triple occupancy for allrnusers) until you don’t vacate the rooms. If you don’t decide to pay or movernout, he will lock the rooms, and you will lose your belongings.

The Real Problem

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bxsjWvu9LB4

Click above to listen to podcast or continue reading

Let me explain the problem and why I state it is unfair,rncoercive, and monopolistic. It is about specific policy changes pertaining tornGoogle Workspace, formerly G-Suite.

Let’s assume that I am an MSME owner having 50 computerrnusers. I have taken a G-Suite Basic 30 GB storage space forrneach team member. Imagine I have been using it for the last four years andrnpaying INR 1,25,000 INR annually (INR 2,500 per user annually). In due coursernof time, two of my senior colleagues and I required more storage space. Googlerngave us 100 GB of additional storage space for INR 1300 per year per user. So,rnthree of us have 130 GB storage each for INR 3,800 per user per year and restrnof the 47 users have 30 GB storage each. My total yearly outflow is INRrn1,28,900. All my data is on google cloud, and my business communication is onrnGoogle. In a nutshell, I am critically dependent on Google.

Then Google announced rebranding G-Suite to GooglernWorkspace with specific policy changes. We are informed that an additional 100rnGB storage is no longer available. One must upgrade to the “BusinessrnStandard” category, which has a minimum storage of 2 TB and costs INR 10,100rnper year per user. They also declared that if you need more than 30 GBrnstorage in a single account, you must upgrade all the accounts to 2 TB storage.rnLet us rework the numbers. So now, because I need 130 GB for a few users, I amrncoerced to upgrade all 50 accounts to a 2 TB storage at a 400% higher price.

It works out to be a yearly outflow of INR 5,05,000 from 1,28,900.rnIt is unfair.

Google knows that MSMEs like us can’t have data of 100 TBrn(50 users with 2 TB each), so we will not be able to use it. So, it does notrnneed to provision 100 TB on its cloud and can still charge for 100 TB.

Imagine the situation. If I did not agree to upgrade allrnaccounts, the space would be immediately shrunk back to 30 GB from 130 GB,rnstopping my business. In today’s time, business stops as emails stop. Itrnis a pressure point to force me to upgrade to 2 TB each forrnall the users.

In such a situation, imagine what options MSMEs likernus have. Migrating to another service provider is the wise option. ButrnGoogle has already raised the exit barrier.

There are complex ways to export email data from GooglernWorkspace. Most MSMEs cannot understand them, and all they can do is downloadrnall emails to the new service provider from Google. If I want to download allrnmy emails to another service provider, Google has set a policy that I cannotrndownload them continuously. It will allow a limited number of emails every hourrnand then wait for the next cycle. It takes days. And these days, my emails havernstopped (read business).

So, even if I want to exit, I can’t. It is an ultimaternpressure point to compel MSMEs to upgrade to 100 TB storage for the example inrnconsideration.

Dear Google, this is not OK. We are MSMEs. Wernare the backbone of this country. We manage and flourish our businesses withrnscarce resources and sincere hard work. We contribute significantly to the GDPrnof our country. We create significant employment for our fellow citizens. Wernearn significant foreign exchange for our country. We honestly pay taxes forrnthe development of our country. We are a big market for you. Our Governmentrntakes us seriously.

Accept the reality that we cannot squander our hard-earnedrnmoney because of your arbitrary policies forcing us to pay for what we don’trnneed.

It is anti-developmental for India, my country.

We Indians have embraced you as our own, celebrated yourrnleadership decisions, and accepted you as an integral part of our digital life.

We request you rationalize your policies by lowering thernexit barrier or selling something your customers need. Please remember that wernMSMEs sportily accepted the price rise you declared three years ago from INR 1500rnto INR 2500 for a 30 GB mailbox.

My suggestions

1. Introducern additional storage space options in the “Business Starter” category. It isrn unfair to charge the customers what they will not use.
2. Orrn revoke the policy forcing upgrade for all users in case one user needsrn more storage. It is a coercive practice to force the customers to upgradern for all users when the upgrade requirement is only for one user.
3. Ifrn you don’t want to do the above, cooperate with your customers who want torn migrate. It is monopolistic to keep a high exit barrier.

I hope that you will understand the concerns and take itrnpositively. We MSMEs would be happy to see you review the policy andrnrationalize it.

Best Regards,

Vishal Shah
Founder and CEO
Synersoft TechnologiesrnPrivate Limited

Important Note

This letter is written after doing in-depth research. Therndocuments supporting the claims in this letter can be downloaded from the givenrnlink.

CC:

Competition Commission of India :
rnShri Ashok Kumar Gupta cci-chairman@nic.in
rnShri Rahul Ravindran rahul.ravindran@cci.gov.in

Ministry of MSME:
rnShri Narayan Tau Rane min-msme@nic.in
rnShri Shailesh Kumar Singh dcmsme@nic.in

Ministry of Information and Broadcasting :
rnShri Jayant Sinha asfainb@gov.in
rnShri Rabindra Kumar Jena rk.jena@gov.in

Ministry of Commerce and Industry:
rnShri Piyush Goyal piyush.goyal@gov.in,
rnShri Ravi Jha cimoffice@nic.in

Ministry of Finance:
rnSmt Nirmala Sitharaman appointment.fm@gov.in
rnShri SS Nakul FMO@nic.in

PMO:
connect@mygov.nic.in
narendramodi1234@gmail.com

 Tag:

https://www.synersoft.in/ok-google-its-not-ok-my-open-letter-to-google/