Gary Angel wrote Give Me Back My Wrecking Ball over Eric Peterson’s devastating remarks on Brandt Dainow’s Google Analytics post, which I also commented on in Is Google Analytics the Killer App? No - Eric T. Peterson, and went on to examine if Google Analytics is actually a Killer App?  Gary says something similar to me (on the low end, yes, on the high end, no).

"..For software competing in the low and mid-market, I don’t think there is much doubt that GA is in fact a killer app. It is functionally very much on the same turf as these other products. In the 2.0 rev, it is better designed and easier to use than most. It’s free. And it’s from one of the strongest brands in the world. If I was selling a low-end WA tool, I think I’d pack it in too."

But the point is that nothing that Google has produced is really that much superior to what anyone else produces - they just have a knack for making it easier to use and more scalable.  But those advantages aren't important for Enterprise clients who aren't really looking for the "easiest" most "scalable" tool to use ….they're looking for the "right" tool to use and cost (free) is not that important in this situation.

Gary did leave open the possibility, that for all it's simplicity - Google Analytics might go after the high end market by making it's interface appeal to Web Analysts instead of marketers.

 "..I think the potential issues around support and integration are obvious. But the GUI issues might be less apparent. Enterprise-class web analytics tools are increasingly for analysts not for marketers. And the type of GUI appropriate to an analyst may just be fundamentally different than what is going to work for a "mass-market" product like GA.

For example, to get the kind of power in statistical analysis that an analyst wants, you need tools like SPSS and SAS. I doubt whether such tools could ever be "fit" into a mass-market GUI. Of course, web analytics tools in their current enterprise state are well short of that level of complexity. So, to me, it’s an open question whether a mass-market product could also own the enterprise analyst’s desktop. I suspect not, but it doesn’t strike me as clearly impossible.

I liked the rest of Gary's post too - which I read slowly and carefully.