"It's good to see Google taking steps to show they are serious about the enterprise IT administrators. Certainly, LDAP is how they do a lot of management of enterprise accounts," said Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst with Nucleus Research. "There's still more that Google needs to do, but this is a strong step forward."

In enterprises, Apps is often a complement, not a substitute, for collaboration platforms like the ones from IBM Lotus and Microsoft, so this directory utility will come in handy for IT staffers in those situations, she said.