Being part of the IT industry is generally a wonderful experience; however, it has two drawbacks. First, as soon as anyone hears that I am involved in IT (after I explain what IT means), I instantly become a help desk technician. I hear things like, "Maybe you can help me out. I'm writing this document, and I can't figure out how to set the right and left margins to alternating widths for odd and even pages" . . . as if being in IT somehow means that I understand every nuance of every hardware and software product.

The second drawback is equally frustrating. When some people hear that I work in the IT industry, little dollar signs flash in their eyes, and they ask, "What are the hot companies? Which ones should I be investing in?" I hate that one. A subject that often comes up in these encounters is Google, as in: "Should I invest in Google? Is it overvalued? Does it have a lot of growth left in it?"

I'm not a financier. Nor do I pretend to be one. I've never advised anyone to buy Google — although I wish I had, given its growth. From my own non-financial-analyst perspective, I think Google is tremendously overvalued, but that hasn't stopped the stock from rising. Let's face it. Google is hot.

Hot: Google As Industry Reshaper

Google is hot not because of its financial standing; Google is hot because of how it is reshaping the industry. Google has set new standards in both Internet and desktop search — and it has successfully spun off its search engine into hardware appliances that organizations can integrate into their own environments (although the appliances are the ugliest that I've ever seen).

Google also continues to challenge Microsoft on the desktop application front. Google applications aren't as enterprise-ready as Microsoft applications, but they are pretty good. They also represent a radically different worldview from Microsoft's. Microsoft designs products for the traditional PC, whereas Google designs products for Internet-connected devices.

The innovations don't stop there. Google's Gmail and iGoogle have challenged the likes of AOL, MSN, and Yahoo. Google Maps has challenged MapQuest and other online mapping systems — and made new inroads for satellite maps in the process. (How many news reports have you seen featuring Google satellite views? I've seen plenty.) In short, Google has been an agent of significant change in the IT industry.

Google has made mistakes, but it keeps trying. I wish Microsoft would try even half as hard to innovate.

Not Hot: Google As Archetype

What's not hot about Google? That's easy: all the reporters, analysts, and consultants who say that organizations will begin to model themselves after Google. Such a theory is ridiculous. For example, look at the hardware that Google deploys. Google builds most of its own servers (and is rapidly becoming the fourth largest server manufacturer, behind HP, Dell, and IBM) and installs them in dense rack configurations. If an individual server fails, the workload gets rebalanced around it, and end-user service is not disrupted.

My only argument with the architecture of the Google approach is that it's impractical for mainstream IT organizations. Google writes all its own software so it can work in the massively scaled, rack-dense environment. Most software can't function in that model. We might get there some day, thanks to service-oriented architecture (SOA) programming, but no time soon.

As for the rack-dense approach, well, notice that Google (and other megascaled, rack-dense solutions) locates its data centers near hydroelectric dams or other colossal power sources. These data centers consume power and generate heat like you wouldn't believe. How many IT shops are ready for that kind of complexity, even on a small scale?

My advice to IT organizations is that although studying Google is certainly informative, trying to emulate Google's data center architecture is imprudent.

Sean Chandler is a computer and network consultant who has nearly 30 years of field experience. Astro, a border collie with more than 40 dog years of data processing experience, provides technical support to his master, Sean. You can reach them both at schandler@SystemiNetwork.com.