Google Enterprise Blog

Google Apps Premier Edition Innovation – Year in Review

2009-11-24T21:35:00.000-08:00

Google Apps is helping millions of companies save money, but more importantly, Google Apps helps businesses move beyond the slow, multi-year innovation cycle typical of legacy technologies. We’ve released over 100 significant improvements and updates over the last year, and businesses automatically have access to these updates without having to manage complex and costly upgrades.

Last week I hosted a webcast titled Google Apps Premier Edition Innovation – Year in Review to spotlight the most important improvements we’ve made recently. You can watch the replay below or see it on YouTube.

Innovation happening across the web is rapidly translating into better business email tools, more efficient collaboration choices for coworkers, and more secure, higher reliability technology for companies. We’re excited about what’s in store for Google Apps, and to keep up with future developments, you can subscribe to the Google Apps Updates RSS feed, or sign up for email alerts.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server now connects businesses of all sizes

2009-11-24T08:30:00.000-08:00

When we launched the Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry® Enterprise Server in August, we focused on addressing the needs of companies operating their own BlackBerry Enterprise Servers, typically supporting a couple hundred BlackBerry smartphone users per server.

Of course, companies of all sizes are adopting Google Apps, and their needs for supporting BlackBerry smartphones are as diverse as their businesses. So today we're making it easier for companies large and small to manage their BlackBerry smartphones and save money.

With Google Apps Connector for BES version 1.5, large businesses can now support 500 BlackBerry devices per server, double the previous capacity. This lets them serve more users with fewer servers.

Small businesses get more flexibility too. The Apps Connector now supports BlackBerry Professional Software, which is designed for up to 30 BlackBerry smartphones. We've also made it possible for a single BlackBerry Enterprise Server to serve users across multiple companies, enabling low-cost hosting services to be offered by hosting partners.

Stay tuned for more announcements from partners offering hosting services for Google Apps customers with BlackBerry smartphones. In the meantime, we're going to continue to make it easier for you to manage mobile devices of all types with Google Apps.

Posted by Zhengping Zuo, Software Engineer and Darrell Kuhn, Site Reliability Engineer

Saluting Google Power Posters

2009-11-20T09:01:00.000-08:00

Thousands of administrators visit the Google Apps Help Forum every day in need of advice and technical knowledge. The heart and soul of this community are known as the Google Apps Power Posters: LMckin51, Jim McNelis, jlee, ScienceMan, Benjamin, FrankM, Ingraye, Anurag Bhatia, DLW, and Amit.

These superstars volunteer their valuable time freely to provide their expertise and share their knowledge of Google Apps with users on the Help Forum.

The Power Posters come from diverse backgrounds: we have an environmental engineer, a college freshman, and a website administrator who helps out at his local church, but they all share the same passion for the product and zeal to help users:

"For all of the time I have invested in helping others on the forums, the knowledge and friendships that have come from these experiences have been more rewarding than I would have ever imagined." - Jim McNelis

"I first visited the Help Group to learn how to setup something (I no longer remember what). I found my answer almost immediately. Just as important, I found other users with questions I could answer. After that first 'thank you' from a fellow user, I was hooked." - DLW

"I love it when as all the gears snap into place and things just start to work. Almost like magic." - Ingraye

On the first anniversary of the Google Apps Help Forum, we would like to take this opportunity to show our appreciation for their efforts. Between them they have answered more than 25,000 posts since it launched in November 2008 - a mammoth achievement.

The entire Google Apps community thanks our Power Posters for their hard work, dedication and passion!

We'd also like to dedicate this post to the late techlover, who was a constant inspiration to our Power Posters and is still sorely missed.

Posted by Jolly Ngemu and Anjoli Podder, Google Apps Advisors team

From Microsoft Exchange 2007 to Google Apps: the Delta Hotels and Resorts story

2009-11-17T12:45:00.000-08:00

Editor's note: Please welcome today’s guest blogger, Michael Rodger, Director of Digital Innovation for Delta Hotels and Resorts. Mike oversees technology strategy, development and operations and is based in Toronto, Canada.

Delta boasts a diversified portfolio of 44 city center, airport and resort properties, and employs more than 7,000 people. The company is at the forefront of cloud computing, not only for email and collaboration, but also for building social networks that encourage employee collaboration.

Mike will be telling more about Delta's transition at a live webcast this Thursday, November 19, 2009, 2:00 p.m. EST / 11:00 a.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. GMT.

At Delta Hotels and Resorts, we continually look for ways to enhance the relationships we have built with our guests, colleagues, and owners. As a people-centric organization, we have a vibrant colleague community which is empowered to deliver honest and genuine service on a daily basis. One of our technology goals is to provide innovative ways in which our employees can strengthen the Delta community.

Our talented and hard-working colleagues are, undoubtedly, the difference-maker for our brand. Collectively, the spirit, creativity and passion for service that personify our staff enables Delta Hotels and Resorts to rank as one of Canada's top employers and maintain one of the lowest employee turnover rates in the hotel industry. Within our culture, we affectionately comment that our colleagues have "Delta in their DNA."

To support our colleagues and optimize the way in which they work, our IT department develops ideas that improve collaboration and push the boundaries of technology. One recent implementation involved the wholesale replacement of a static and outdated Intranet platform with an engaging employee social networking site. The general idea was that our colleagues would embrace a user-generated content platform that truly permits information sharing across the hotel and the entire company. The results have been staggeringly successful! So much so that our IT team is now developing enhancements which are intended to take the platform to even greater heights.

Delta Hotels and Resorts decision to embrace Google Apps is another example of our commitment to improving collaboration and breaking down conventional technology bottlenecks. The pain points of conventional, on-premise solutions include desktop software licensing, private wide area networks, and never-ending storage requirements.

Conventional solutions are simply too expensive and too rigid to support progressive organizations such as Delta. From a cost perspective alone, the move to Google has cost us 75% less than a comparable on-premise messaging and calendaring solution.

While the switch to Google has created new opportunities for colleagues, it has also enabled IT to remove bottlenecks on technology processes and resources. Extensible storage, message archiving and built-in disaster recovery are three basic examples of situations where Delta Hotels and Resorts has saved significant sums of money by choosing a cloud-based solution to replace an on-site headache.

You can see more in our video, here:

To date, Delta Hotels and Resorts has provided Google Apps accounts to more than 4,000 colleagues across 44 hotels. One out of two staff has a Google Apps account and we're striving to improve that ratio. In order to reach staff who may not otherwise touch a computer on a day-to-day basis (e.g. doormen, housekeepers, banquet servers and others), we've deployed Apple iMacs across all employee cafeterias. In addition, we've developed programs which encourage our staff to connect from home computers, smartphones or any browser with an Internet connection.

We are proud of our decision to embrace the cloud and implement Google Apps. I am delighted to share some of the insights we’ve gained from our move and supporting a multilingual workforce, during a live webcast, "From Microsoft Exchange 2007 to Google Apps: The Delta Hotels and Resorts Story."

Join us for this LIVE Event on:

Thursday, November 19, 2009
2:00 p.m. EST / 11:00 a.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. GMT
(please note that you will be registering on the webinar host's site)

Posted by Serena Satyasai, the Google Apps team

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

A better web-powered workspace for today's workplace

2009-11-16T21:26:00.000-08:00

Nearly two years ago, we launched Google Sites to make it easier, faster and more affordable for employees to create and collaborate in rich, dynamic sites, even without any technical background. We’re seeing companies large and small gravitate to Google Sites, shifting away from legacy on-premises workspace solutions.

Our customers really tell the story best. Ron Brister, Senior Manager of Worldwide IT Operations for Serena Software, says, “We’re moving our project workspace collaboration to Google Sites because it requires less expertise and administration than Microsoft SharePoint, and it’s easier for employees to use. Better ease-of-use directly translates into more fluid information-sharing, which helps our teams move faster and cross-pollinate good ideas.”

Luke Leonhard, Web Services Manager for Brady Corporation adds, “Google Sites is a very efficient way for our teams to aggregate and share information together. With our old IBM Lotus Quickr solution, it took seven clicks and three page refreshes for employees to publish new information internally. Google Sites makes it just two clicks. Because Sites makes it so easy, coworkers are sharing information more freely than ever before.”

Bill Behrman, Stanford University Associate Consultant Professor adds, “Typically, public information officers create press releases and other content in Word documents, email these to their Web people, and wait for the Web folks to update the website. With Google Sites, the Santa Clara Public Health Department public information officers were able to directly and instantly publish and update content on the web. This brings critical information to local residents without delay, and government agencies don't need to worry about their servers being overwhelmed with website traffic.”

Today, we’re helping companies move to Google Sites even more quickly with templates for sites like employee intranets, project tracking sites, team sites, employee profile pages and more. Templates give you a head-start with page layouts, navigation links, embedded gadgets, content, themes and other site attributes. Employees can submit their own templates to a private gallery for colleagues to use, so the gallery will become even more useful over time.

Example template: employee intranet site

If your business is ready to move beyond traditional collaboration hardware and software, learn more about Google Apps (which includes Google Sites). You can try Premier Edition free for 30 days, or contact our corporate sales team to begin exploring a larger deployment.

We also invite you to join us on Thursday, November 19th at 10:00 a.m. PST (1:00 p.m. EST) for a web seminar on Google Sites. You'll learn how your business can efficiently collaborate with Google Sites, including how to use the new site templates features. Register here.

Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Product Manager, Google Apps team

Gone Google at EDUCAUSE 2009

2009-11-12T12:04:00.000-08:00

According to the newly-released 2009 Campus Computing survey statistics, 44% of colleges and universities have converted to a hosted student email solution, while another 37% are currently evaluating the move. Of those that have migrated, over half — 56% precisely — are going Google.

Since this time last year we have seen lots of exciting growth for Google Apps Education Edition. We've rolled out more than 100 new features, launched free Google Message Security for K-12 schools, integrated with other learning services such as Blackboard and Moodle, and have reached well over six million students and faculty – a 400% increase since this time last year.

The Google Apps for Education team celebrated these big changes with Apps customers – including students – and conference attendees last week at EDUCAUSE, an important annual gathering for higher ed IT. Here are a few photos:

Read more about EDUCAUSE and our exciting year of change, and be sure to visit www.google.com/appsatschool to learn more about how your school can go Google.

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps Education Edition team

Governments Gone Google

2009-11-10T14:30:00.000-08:00

It's not often in life that we can get more for less. But that's just what cloud computing is offering cash-strapped governments across the country: an opportunity to upgrade their dated infrastructure to state of the art, and save money in the process.

That was the appeal of Google Apps to Conrad Cross, the CIO for the City of Orlando. Conrad is leading the migration of all 3,000 city employees from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps, including the Police and Fire departments. Facing software license renewals, major upgrade costs, and a 12% reduction in staff, it was the right time for the City to consider other options. For half the cost of the alternative, Orlando is jumping onto Google's innovation curve and freeing up IT resources to focus on more important efforts. "The time was right," said Cross. "I'm delivering a better service with less resources, and that gets me ahead of the game." Just down Interstate-95, the 11th largest school district in the US, Palm Beach County, is also moving its more than 200,000 students, staff and other users to Apps.

The New Mexico Attorney General’s Office has a similar story. Its 120 attorneys and 200 full-time employees use Google Apps for email, archiving, and document management. After moving from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, the employees no longer need to delete mail or worry about backing up sensitive information. The data's instantly available whenever they want it and they're more productive.

Fast growing cities like Canton, Georgia are also benefiting from the cloud. Strained by escalating spam and endless server maintenance, Camille Wehs, the city's only IT staffer, moved all 165 employees to Apps. With additional reliability, disaster recovery, flexibility and anywhere access to information, she sleeps better for it.

Most recently, the Los Angeles City Council voted unanimously to move its 30,000 employees to Apps. If you're also interested in getting more for less, please join us for a live webcast this Thursday featuring James Ferreira, CIO for the New Mexico State Attorney General’s Office.

Join us for this LIVE Event on:
Thursday, November 12, 2009
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT

Already a Google Apps customer? Submit a form to share your story.

Posted by Michael Lock, Director, Americas Sales & Operations, Google Enterprise

Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps? One government agency goes Google

2009-11-10T12:59:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: Please welcome our guest blogger, James Ferreira, Chief Information Officer for the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General. He provides IT services to the largest law office in the state. James Ferreira has the privilege of serving the New Mexico public as Attorney General Gary King's CIO. Mr. Ferreira is tasked with the responsibility of facilitating the communication between the public and nearly 200 office staff, including attorneys. Additionally, Mr. Ferreira has served as a member on many committees including the NM Information and Technology committee, NM Technical Counsel, Department of Information and Technology Project Review Committee and the Conference of Western Attorneys General WAGGY committee.

Please join us for a live webcast on Thursday, November 12, 2009 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT where James will be on hand to answer your questions about his office's switch to Google Apps from Microsoft Exchange (3rd party registration required).

Attorneys rely heavily on documents like pleadings, deposition transcripts, exhibits, briefs and other legal materials. In the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, we have 120 attorneys and 200 full-time employees whose jobs revolve around documents. And it's not just the attorneys. Imagine the news releases, media advisories, scripts and other materials that our communications department has to produce.

We essentially use email as our day-to-day file and case management system, so it is mission-critical. Our previous Microsoft Exchange email solution was falling short – especially regarding the need to safeguard and backup sensitive emails. We looked at moving to a clustered system of in-house email servers for failovers, but we calculated the cost at $300,000, not including continual upgrades.

We began searching for something with ample inbox storage, easy backup and data redundancy and perhaps most importantly, a system that offered high security and reliability. Google Apps Premier Edition emerged as the clear alternative. To put it in perspective, Google Apps and Gmail can support any attorney over the course of a whole career, storing and backing up every email he or she ever sends. Google Apps Premier Edition also passed muster with well-known third-party security auditing organizations.

The move to Google Apps took minimal time and effort, and our users now appreciate the reliability and large storage quotas of their new email system. We have realized many additional cost savings. For instance, we have created a prototype Google Docs archiving solution, using the Documents API. In addition, a few years ago, the department paid more than $50,000 for replication software to store data from a SAN to a disaster recovery site. It didn't work very well – but is no longer required with Google Apps. We also spend less time and money on licensing. In the past, I often joked that we needed to check if we needed a license for the license with our former software vendor. With Google Apps, we get the whole deal up front.

Google Apps Premier Edition was a good fit for the Attorney General's Office. It provides secure, available, and searchable access to documents and emails, while reducing costs and lessening workloads for our busy IT staff. It has reduced the "paper chase" across the board, from attorneys to our busy communications staff. I hope you can join me on a live webcast this Thursday where I'll take your questions about "going Google."

Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps? One Government Agency Goes Google
Thursday, November 12, 2009 
2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

'Tis the shopping season: introducing Google Commerce Search

2009-11-04T21:40:00.000-08:00

As we approach the holidays, retailers are gearing up for the seasonal shopping traffic. While they can't, of course, control overall consumer spending, they can control the experience they provide to consumers – both in their brick-and-mortar stores and online.

To help accomplish this, today we're announcing a new product, Google Commerce Search, to power e-commerce and search for online stores.

In the online shopping world, search quality is a big factor in converting browsers to buyers, and in keeping customers happy. In fact, 43% of visitors to online retail sites say the very first thing they do is type the product name or product category into the search box (MarketingSherpa).

While most of the top retailers have a search engine on their websites, the speed and accuracy of search results can make a real difference in visitor engagement and conversion rates. Visitors spend an average of only 8 seconds before deciding whether or not to remain on a website (MarketingSherpa), so fast, accurate results can make a big difference in conversion.

That's why we're prioritizing speed and search quality for online stores with Google Commerce Search (GCS). GCS is a hosted, cloud-based offering that brings the relevancy, speed, and Google ease-of-use to e-commerce sites. Learn more here:

GCS also has a bunch of user-friendly features that make shopping on online stores easier, and search results more refined and accurate. Some of those features are:

speed – GCS leverages Google's ultra fast platform, because it's hosted, providing sub-second response times to users.

Google quality and ranking – GCS analyzes every item in the data feed using proprietary signals to determine its optimal placement in the result set, for more accurate query results for shoppers.

parametric search and sorting – GCS allows users to refine or sort results by category, price, brand, or other attribute; this is fully-functional parametric search for e-stores.

product boost and promotions – Retailers can boost the relevance of certain items, or highlight specific products during a sale, and cross-sell related products.

spell check, stemming and synonyms – By leveraging the larger Google search engine, GCS can include these advanced search and synonym options, so the shopping experience is smoother for customers – even customers who mistype.

fast deployment and scale – Since this is a cloud-based offering, GCS can be deployed in days and, because it's hosted on the Google platform, retailers can scale to meet their higher-demand periods like the holidays without worrying about slowdowns or spikes.

The hosted factor is a key feature in making GCS easy for administrators to use. Because there's no hardware (or software, servers, operating systems, cables, or any other equipment), admins can upload product information to Google Merchant Center and provide a few extra customization parameters – and Google Commerce Search utilizes that product feed to power their website store search.

Retailers can use the same feed to submit their products for indexing in Google Product Search as well, cutting down on time and tech costs.

With GCS, any e-commerce website can provide visitors with an improved shopping experience. That improvement can drive higher visitor-to-buyer conversion rates. While the conversion rates of most retailers is around 3% (Forrester), the best-performing sites have been able to achieve much higher conversion rates – even reaching double digits. For the top online retailers, improving the conversion rate from 3% to even 4% might actually mean improving online sales by 33% – a jump that can represent millions of extra dollars each month.

GCS frees online stores to do what they do best – create the product and promotional mix that their visitors need – and leaves Google to do what we do best: search. This helps retailers improve conversions and drive the sales that matter this holiday season – and, in fact, all year 'round.

Learn more about GCS at google.com/commercesearch.

Posted by Anna Bishop and Eric Larson, Google enterprise search team

Building your business around Google Docs

2009-11-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

Editor's Note: Taylor McKnight is a co-founder of SCHED*, a web based scheduling and social networking application for conferences and festivals. He is currently a partner at The Hype Machine, a music blog aggregator and discovery tool for music fans and has worked extensively as a web developer at Gawker Media and The University of Florida. Taylor built SCHED* using Google Docs, part of the Google Apps suite of messaging and collaboration apps available in Education, Standard and Premier Editions.

We're sharing Taylor's story as an example of how Google Apps speeds innovation and makes it easy for good ideas to turn into real businesses, quickly, reliably, and without the need for investment in IT infrastructure.

I'm a rabid music fan, and friends often ask me for recommendations when it comes to festivals, bands, and other music-related events. SCHED* was born out of a desire to keep track of my favorite events.

SCHED* is a simple, social scheduling app that Chirag Mehta and I launched as an unofficial SXSW 2008 Schedule and which spread like wildfire among attendees. There were more than 4,000 bands, panels, films and parties going on during that week and I was obsessed with not missing a thing. I had grown weary of manually building a schedule of recommendations for friends and wanted to build an easy way that anybody could create and publicize a schedule themselves.

We soon expanded to support all kinds of events and new clients including music festivals like Lollapalooza, tech conferences like The Next Web, and political conventions like the UK Labour Conference. We've now handled 80+ new events.

We ran the original version of SCHED* at SXSW 2008 as a makeshift solution using an exported Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file. Once we began working with clients, we began looking for a more streamlined solution – ideally, an online spreadsheet that they could update on-the-go and didn't require programming knowledge. Google Apps Premier Edition provided the answer.

Google Docs spreadsheets, included in Google Apps, was the clear front runner because a majority of conference organizers already had Google accounts and were familiar with the interface. Additionally, the API made it easy for organizers to retrieve data from their spreadsheets. Here's what it looks like when it's up and running:

The idea of driving our entire admin interface from within a Google spreadsheet was exciting. Little to no learning curve, no server overhead, and Google's redundancy made this decision a big payoff. After setting up a simple data template, we used the Google Docs API to give the organizers a way to update the live site. In a single day it was integrated so that a simple click of a button would trigger an XML export of the Google Docs spreadsheet to our servers, instantly updating both our database and the live schedule that users would see.

The benefits of creatively using a Google Docs spreadsheet as a database entry point also gave us additional features we didn't have to build.

Document sharing was an easy way to provide access to all those involved as well as troubleshoot any difficulties live with the built in chat room. If a client needed help with formatting or suggestions for their event types we could give them live suggestions within the spreadsheet. Revision history gave us instant rollback in case there were any accidental overwrites, which are bound to happen.

Having these support features and safety nets built in to Google Docs spreadsheets let us spend more time improving the product itself (like an iPhone compatible version!) instead of reinventing the wheel.

We also use the Google Talk chatback badges embedded into every page of our new marketing site to provide always-on, live chat access to our team. We're excited to give our current and potential clients a new, simple way of communicating with us (even without logging into anything!).

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

Have a story to share about how you use Google Apps? Tell us here and we may follow up with you.

Single Sign-on to ZoHo, Tripit, SocialWok and more from Google Apps

2009-11-03T09:00:00.000-08:00

In July we announced that the Google OpenID Federated Login API has been extended to Google Apps accounts used by businesses, schools, and other organizations. The service is important not only to individuals, who can now use their single Google Apps Account to sign in to a variety of websites without sharing credentials, but also to the organizations themselves, who increasingly rely on multiple Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions from different vendors.

For these organizations, Google Apps can now become an identity hub for multiple SaaS vendors.

In fact, since July a number of vendors have used this API to add support for single-sign-on with Google Apps Accounts, including ZoHo, Tripit, Smartsheet, Socialwok, and Manymoon.

These vendors are reporting increases in registration rates after deploying this feature, and today we announced new features for this API to make these implementations even more powerful.

When integrated with partner solutions such as PingConnect from Ping Identity, OpenID support can be extended to other services like Salesforce.com, SuccessFactors, and WebEX — as well as B2B partners, internal applications, and of course consumer web sites. See Ping Identity's post to learn more about their implementation and view their demo and Data Sheet.

The OpenID Federated Login Service is available for all Google Apps editions. However, it is disabled by default for the Premier and Education editions, and it requires the domain administrator to manually enable it from the Control Panel.

Posted by Eric Sachs, Product Manager, Google Security

How non-profit organizations go Google

2009-10-29T11:53:00.000-07:00

In addition to the thousands of companies and schools that go Google every day, more and more non-profit organizations are choosing Google Apps to help remove the cost and complexity associated with traditional IT, which can often challenge the limited resources of 501(c)3 organizations.

Learn more about the special discounts available for accredited organizations with Google Apps for Non-Profits and read about how USA Water Polo made the switch to Apps and was able to provide 35,000 staff, volunteers, and players with improved email and collaboration tools while re-allocating costs toward funding for their players, teams and members.

Google Apps helps organizations of all kinds improve the way they work by minimizing on-premise hardware, increasing uptime, and making it easy for users to get productive fast. This is especially helpful for non-profit organizations, who can direct their focus away from IT maintenance and put their talents toward what they do best: doing good.

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps for Education and Non-Profit teams

A full complement of tools for a quarter the cost

2009-10-26T15:53:00.000-07:00

Editor's note: Today's guest blogger is Benjamin Doyle, Information Systems Administrator for Alta Planning + Design, a company that combines the skills of planning, design, landscape architecture and engineering to create bicycle, pedestrian, greenway, and trail projects for communities. With headquarters in Portland, Oregon, Alta has a total of 12 offices across the United States.

Benjamin talks about choosing Google Apps over both hosted and in-house Microsoft Exchange.

Scalability, without complexity Alta has 60 employees and we’re growing rapidly. We knew we needed something that could scale up without bogging us down with decisions on hardware, upgrades, and maintenance. We also needed portability and easy collaboration because our employees are constantly on the go, visiting the communities we work with around the globe. We were pretty sure we didn’t want the headache and constant maintenance of an in-house system.

Our previous email system – provided free through our website host – couldn't keep up with our needs for reliability and ease of access. Messages were downloaded to individual computers, limiting remote access and making archiving near impossible. It also left us without a way to have a shared calendar solution accessible to all our users in all offices (many of us were already using Google Calendar), and it made sense to choose a service which so cleanly integrates calendars with e-mail.

Savings We compared hosted Microsoft Exchange, in-house Microsoft Exchange, and Google Apps Premier Edition – plus their associated operating costs – and Google Apps came out way below the other alternatives cost-wise, yet provided all the functionality we were after.

Google Apps was projected to save us about 62% in the first year over setting up an in-house Exchange server and 67% annual savings compared to hosted Microsoft Exchange. For a business with no prior communications budget to speak of, Google Apps was a huge advantage that provided great cost savings.

Many unexpected benefits Google Apps was virtually painless to implement, and it’s given us fast, reliable communication and collaboration. Spread out among 12 offices, there's not another solution on the market we know of that pulls together all the tools we need as well as Google Apps. We’re pretty much using the full gamut of capabilities: Gmail, Google's instant messaging, Google Calendar, Google Sites, Google Video and Google Docs. We use the web mail interface to keep things simple.

Communication via integrated voice the video chat was an unexpected boon for us – it’s widely popular for our network of offices as a way of quickly sharing information without having to pick up the phone. We were able to create a more reliable and accessible intranet with Google Sites than we could have done with other tools.

Being able to access our documents and other data from almost any browser is also great since we all travel so much. Everyone has access to mail and calendars with their mobile devices, and they can go from their workstation to a travel laptop seamlessly.

What’s great is that Google offers constant improvement and development. New features are introduced on an ongoing basis. Some of the extra features included in Google Apps aren't available with other services. I keep up on the new features by subscribing to Apps Update Alerts (RSS feed or email alerts). Because updates and improvements are implemented by Google, and not on on-premise servers, it's fewer "off hours" working hours for me.

Our IT budget has been able to shift more dollars into data storage and networking – money that would have otherwise been spent on a mail server and user applications. Plus, with Google keeping our mail and intranet secure and running with a 99+% up time guarantee, we have less to worry about and more time to spend on other important projects. Since our information is flowing quicker between users through a range of mediums, and our users have no trouble accessing communication and internal resources on the go.

- Benjamin Doyle, Information Systems Administrator, Alta Planning + Design

Posted by Serena Satyasai, The Google Apps Team

Find customer stories and product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

New: refinement options for metadata in Google Site Search

2009-10-26T15:50:00.000-07:00

Earlier this year, we announced support for Rich Snippets in Google Site Search results. If you provide in-page metadata markup via RDFa, Microformats, or PageMaps, Google Site Search extracts the metadata and returns it as PageMaps in your XML results, so you can render this structured data in your search results. Rich snippets enable website owners to customize the user interface and expose images, ratings, authors and other interesting pieces of metadata with search results.

Today, metadata support in Google Site Search just got a whole lot better. We now provide the ability for website owners to use these metadata attributes and provide refinement options on the front-end.

For example, website owners can build a rich search interface that not only allows users to search on keywords but also refine the search results based on the author of the document, user rating or othermetadata attributes.

We've enabled a way for you to restrict your search results via use of a special operator. Let's say that you wanted to restrict the results to those results that were authored by a specific author, e.g., "typicaluser". We can do this easily by adding the following restriction in our search query: [economy more:pagemap:document-author:typicaluser]. This gives us exactly what we want – all of the documents with keyword economy and authored by "typicaluser".

We've also recently launched a Rich Snippet preview tool. This tool allows you to view not only the Rich Snippets markup recognized for Google web search, but also the additional customized markup that we support in Google Site Search. You can immediately preview how your web page will be processed after indexing, and whatmetadata attributes will be returned in PageMaps in your Google Site Search results.

For more information on Google Site Search, please visit Google Site Search.

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Lead Product Manager, Google Enterprise Search

Singing a new tune: Google Search Appliance now includes automated tuning, better connectivity

2009-10-20T08:33:00.000-07:00

When we launched Google Search Appliance 6.0 in June we introduced a brand new architecture, (GSA)ⁿ. The GSA now lets organizations search over a billion documents, and we are constantly looking to develop on (GSA)ⁿ even further. In that vein, our engineers have been working feverishly to build more capabilities and ease of use into the appliance. Today we're announcing more than 10 new features available on the GSA from Google Enterprise, including one that automatically improves results over time, the Self-Learning Scorer. Take a look here:

Self-Learning Scorer analyzes employee clicks and behavior to automatically fine-tune and improve its built-in relevance. For instance, if most users click on the fourth result for a given query, the GSA recognizes that and automatically boosts its placement – without any intervention from an administrator. Along with our existing and intuitive biasing features and Ranking Framework, this provides ease of relevance tuning.

Most enterprise search engines do three things: crawl, index and serve. With the new Self-learning Scorer, we're adding a new step to the mix: analysis. As the GSA continually serves up results, it's also learning to dynamically improve – automatically. This gives the GSA new self-improving intelligence, and adds a new step to the enterprise search cycle.

With this release, we're adding a new login feature, which provides a simple approach to securely mapping user credentials to the various back-end systems within an organization. Many larger organizations may have not one, but several 'single sign-on' systems, so this new universal login feature minimizes the number of logins for the user when performing an internal search across all company systems.

Today we're also expanding connectivity to a myriad of systems, including content management systems, file shares and databases. We are newly providing native integration for SharePoint out of the box, making indexing of SharePoint content 10x faster. Second, we are providing connectivity to Lotus Notes through Enterprise Labs. Third, we are expanding our support for file shares and databases, so organizations can connect to any file share or database in any format. The new GSA is built to be easier for users and admins – these connectors will make everyone in the office's life easer. We're also expanding the connectors program in our Enterprise Labs, live here.

These are just a couple of the product updates – you can learn about all the new features in this video too. Getting IT admins away from the tuning knobs and back to their real jobs will be a major benefit to our customers. More importantly, it will make employees across the company more productive. When internal search results improve, employees actually search more and find more information with which to do their work. You can read more about this on our blogpost, from a major US pharmaceutical company tracking the number of employee searches over time. After deploying the GSA, employees actually used their internal network significantly more – simply because it worked better.

Enterprise search isn't just about ECMs, connectors and security – it's about utilization. More relevant search results mean more employees utilizing the tools of their trade. Today's GSA update brings the search appliance into the realm of constant innovation – and self-improving intelligence. You can learn more about how the GSA adds the analytical step to the enterprise search cycle at GSA at google.com/gsa.

Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Product Manager, Google Enterprise Search

Guest post: Australia's Mortgage Choice goes Google

2009-10-19T22:04:00.000-07:00

Editor's Note: We're pleased to welcome guest blogger Peter Herrmann, solution architect, Information Technology Department, at Mortgage Choice Limited. Peter led the development of the business case to switch Mortgage Choice to Google, and is project manager and tech lead for the organization-wide deployment of Google Apps. Peter has been working with Mortgage Choice for eight years and has been involved with IT strategy, consulting to internal business units, implementation, migrations, integration and lifecycle for many systems at Mortgage Choice.

Peter has a background in messaging and collaboration technologies and still remembers his delight in getting messages to flow (in 1992) between islands of Lotus Notes, cc:Mail, MS Mail (Windows & Mac), Memo (a mainframe based email system) and MHS (from Novell) during a proof of concept integration he did for a large multinational.

Mortgage Choice, Australia's largest independently-owned mortgage broker, was established in 1992 and operates a franchise-based business model. We have over 1,000 users operating from around 350 locations across Australia.

The Australian mortgage broking industry has undergone a period of significant change and consolidation. In this challenging environment, the ability to scale both up and out while improving our business systems and resources, along with keeping a steady cost base, is critical to growing and strengthening our business.

In IT, we are constantly challenged by the ongoing overhead of installing, upgrading, storing, supporting and maintaining installed software across a geographically dispersed environment.

Prior to our transition to Google Apps, we diligently kept our users' software up-to-date and met system and service SLAs, but simply meeting our service obligations does not necessarily add value! At the end of the day, after buying, running and maintaining our infrastructure and software, our capacity to really add value through innovation was constrained by resource limitations.

By late 2008, with a newly reinvigorated IT strategy taking shape, the Google Apps platform was right in focus. We developed a business case for Google Apps, focusing on the benefits of simplicity (no installed software), choice (access anywhere anytime from any Internet connected device), scalability (growth with a variable cost base) and user happiness (great user experience from modern apps evolved from massive consumer driven input).

During mid-2009, Mortgage Choice ran an initial deployment of Google Apps (Mail, Calendar and Chat) for some 70 users across the country. We used Google Sites for FAQs, feedback forums and spreadsheet forms for polls to get regular user feedback. This was used to continuously improve our change management, communication, migration and support processes and collateral.

At completion of the initial deployment, 91% of users recommended we roll-out Google Apps to the entire organisation. The results also reinforced our IT strategy imperatives to "provide the business with a technology environment that is scalable, flexible, simple to use, leverages modern and emerging technologies and provides users with choice".

Even now, as we roll out to the rest of the organization, we're seeing immediate benefits outside the original project focus of Mail, Calendar and Chat. Users are adopting other Google Apps, such as Google Docs, for collaboration in real time with co-workers and business partners. They're building forms based workflows for their business processes, and have used Google Sites and Google Video to deliver specific on-demand training websites and online manuals.

This innovation is taking place organically at the initiative of users and without the requirement for traditional IT involvement or assistance. Furthermore, it has come at no additional cost and at a pace chosen by the initiators.

Since we've "gone Google", we are seeing tangible benefits from adopting Google Apps across the organisation and we expect this to increase as our people - an increasingly mobile workforce - leverage the platform further in future.

– Peter Herrmann, solution architect, Mortgage Choice Limited

Posted by Annie Baxter, Google Australia team

Over 2 million companies have #goneGoogle around the world

2009-10-19T15:10:00.000-07:00

In August, we asked you share your your stories about why you or your company decided to "go Google" – in another words, switch to Google Apps or any of our other enterprise services. We were excited to see your tweets about going Google, feedback about our products, and even a few photos of our billboards.

Over 2 million companies and 20 million users have now gone Google with Apps, and today, we're expanding our messages to train stations, business publications, billboards, and airports in the U.S. as well as in the U.K., France, Japan, Australia, and Singapore. Check out the Official Google Blog to learn more about the latest in the "going Google" momentum and see a preview of our new global campaign.

If you haven't had a chance to tell us why your company went Google, we invite you to submit a short video to tell us your story, or let us know via Twitter using the hashtag #goneGoogle.

And if you need a bit of inspiration, check out what some of our current customers have to say about going Google:

Posted by Vivian Leung, Google Apps team

Geek Out on the technical details of a Google Apps migration

2009-10-19T14:09:00.000-07:00

If you are actively considering Google Apps as part of your next-generation messaging strategy or just starting to learn more about cloud computing, you – and your boss – no doubt have questions about the technical details of moving into the cloud.

Whether you are switching from Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes/Domino, you may wonder about what it takes to change your DNS and mail settings, and what to do to set up both POP and IMAP mail. You may also have questions about how to support your mobile device users, or end users who must use a local client such as Microsoft Outlook, or about directory sync tools, APIs and which migration tools and services best meet your needs. Above all, you want to avoid mistakes or pitfalls that could cost your company time and money.

The list of technical details and questions can seem overwhelming, but our customers tell us repeatedly that with advanced planning migration to the cloud can be accomplished quickly – and with minimal business disruption.

On October 22, we invite you to learn from members of our Google Apps Deployment Team. They work in the field, hand-in-hand with Apps customers, and have a wealth of experience, as well as some insider tips and tricks to help migrations to Apps go as smoothly as possible.

Migration experts Jim Copeland, Dan Kennedy, and Marcello Pederson will host a live webcast, “Geek Out on The Technical Details of a Google Apps Migration,” that will help you with the nitty-gritty details of moving into the cloud and answer your technical questions.

Our expert panelists include:

Jim Copeland Jim works with Google Apps customers on best practices for deployment and migration. He has been at Google for four years with a background in the legal, financial, and publishing industries.

Dan Kennedy Dan worked for over 10 years as a Microsoft Exchange and Active Directory administrator before coming to work with Google Apps customers via Google's acquisition of Postini. Dan specializes in large deployments where customers require interoperability between systems.

Marcello Pedersen Marcello works with Google Apps customers on a wide range of technical issues such as API usage, SAML/SSO implementations, and complex engineering questions.

Join our live webcast on October 22, 2009 to learn from our experts on the front lines who are helping customers with their Google Apps deployments.

Geek Out on The Technical Details of a Google Apps Migration
Thursday, October 22, 2009
2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m GMT

Register today.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

Find customer stories and product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

Faculty and staff are going Google, too

2009-10-15T14:21:00.001-07:00

September was a big month for Google Apps Education Edition as everyone headed back to school. When we announced five million active users in early September, we didn't expect that it would only be about a month before we would announce that more than six million students, staff, and faculty at schools worldwide are now actively using Google Apps at school.

We talk a lot about what students want and need (and we also try to learn from them as much as possible), but it's important to remember that these six million users aren't only students – they are also faculty and staff members using Google Apps technology in education.

The cloud is all about collaboration, and this means not only students working together, but also students working with their teachers and professors to improve learning outcomes and save time. Using internet-based solutions like Google Apps to enhance the cycle of lesson, evaluation, and adjustment can shorten what used to take days or weeks into minutes, and collaborating in the cloud helps educators connect more effectively with students.

There are lots of examples we're seeing crop up on campuses. For example New York City's Intermediate School 339 ensured clear communication between students, teachers, and the community by moving the entire campus to Google Apps, and taking advantage of features like forms in Google Docs to create real-time quizzes helped to double Math performance scores, increase attendance, and build student engagement.

And, after Boise State University migrated their 2,400 faculty and staff to Google Apps, not only were they able to foster better collaboration between students and staff, but they reduced costs for IT infrastructure, support, and maintenance by $90,000 annually.

Other schools that have chosen Google Apps for their faculty and staff include Temple University, Columbus State University, Abilene Christian University, Macalester College, Manhattan College, Mary Baldwin College, Northeastern State University, and Saint Louis University (including 8,500 staff from their Medical Center and Hospital).

We strongly believe that when all education users - from students to professors to school administrators - have access to cloud-based tools and aren't limited by where or when they work, it enhances their ability to communicate and collaborate effectively. So come on, Go Google and join these schools (and many others) in the cloud with Google Apps.

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps Education Edition team

Learn more about what's possible for your school with Google Apps Education Edition.

Easily share collections of files with Google Docs shared folders

2009-10-12T13:28:00.000-07:00

Teams of coworkers often work on projects involving dozens – sometimes hundreds – of files, like documents, spreadsheets and presentations. As new materials are created and as teams grow and evolve, making sure the right people have access to the latest set of files has been a big challenge.

Today, this is changing with shared folders in Google Docs. Now you can assign viewers and editors to entire folders. Coworkers with access to a folder automatically have access to all the documents, spreadsheets, presentations and PDF contained in it, even as files are added or removed over time. This has been a top requested feature from Google Apps customers, so this an exciting development.

We're also launching the ability to select multiple files to upload in one step. Next time you have a batch of files saved on your computer that you want to collaborate on with coworkers from anywhere, give it a try.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.

UK Universities going Google

2009-10-08T11:12:00.000-07:00

Last month, we announced that over 5 million students were actively using Google Apps Education Edition. Today, we're pleased to note that several noteworthy universities in the UK have joined this growing movement by announcing plans to deploy Google Apps for the coming academic year.

The University of Sheffield, Sheffield Hallam University, the University of Portsmouth and De Montfort University are the latest to sign on with Google Apps, joining established UK Apps users like the University of Westminster and Leeds Met.

We recently mapped Google Apps' adoption in schools across the globe, but we think it's just as interesting to hear how students from the University of Portsmouth are logging in from 26 countries in 10 languages while studying abroad – all in the first month of using Apps. With tools like integrated video chat and real-time collaboration, Google Apps are working in the cloud to make the world a little bit smaller, while making campuses larger than ever.

To read more about UK universities that have gone Google, click here.

Posted by Jason Cook, Google Apps Education Edition team

Learn more about what's possible for your school with Google Apps Education Edition.

Research finds that IT departments are thinking in the cloud

2009-10-08T07:59:00.000-07:00

Google recently sponsored a global, multi-industry research project surveying 1,125 IT decision-makers and their perceptions about cloud computing and the key drivers behind the growth of cloud-based IT solutions.

We're sharing the results of the study in a new whitepaper: the Google Communications Intelligence Report. The findings provide some insights on what types of organizations are moving to the cloud, what value they find there, and what the key drivers for and barriers to adoption are. Some of the key takeaways follow:

More than 60% of respondents indicated that the IT department holds the majority of the responsibility for communications security and compliance, but fewer than 20% feel they are well equipped to handle it.
Email security, web security, and messaging are the cloud applications most widely adopted, and organizations using these applications in the cloud report higher satisfaction than users of traditional platforms.
Ease of use is cited as the key motivator for transitioning to cloud-based applications.
Although price is mentioned as a key deterrent for respondents who are not yet using cloud-based apps, value is cited as a key benefit by respondents who already work in the cloud.

In these findings – and in our conversations with businesses of all types and sizes – we are seeing that more and more businesses are finding enhanced productivity and IT efficiency when they move their applications to the cloud with services such as Postini or Google Apps. That the cloud movement is more than just a trend is validated by our research findings, which indicate that 50% of the respondents who were aware of but not currently using cloud-based apps are planning to deploy a cloud solution within the next 12 months.

Read more about how your organization (or business) might benefit from the research in the Communication Intelligence Report.

Posted by Adam Swidler, Google Postini Services team

Changes to Google Maps in the US

2009-10-07T06:23:00.000-07:00

Today we announced significant changes to Google Maps base map data in the US. Read the details on what's new on the LatLong blog, here.

If you're a Google Maps API Premier customer, the Geo Developer blog has all the info you need regarding this change and the Maps API for your business. The new base map will have expanded features, and a shorter feedback cycle for Maps updates – all leading to better, more accurate maps for employees and customers.

Learn more about the Google Maps API Premier at google.com/enterprise/maps.

Posted by Dan Chu, Product Manager, Google Enterprise team

Get your money's worth with cloud-based messaging

2009-10-06T10:39:00.000-07:00

Do you know how much your email system is costing you? More than just the necessary hardware and software systems, email also requires substantial time and money for maintenance and upkeep. In-house email calls for patches, precautions to maintain high availability and disaster recovery, and the never-ending work it takes to secure and protect email from spam, phishing, and malware.

In a September 2009 study, Osterman Research found that decision makers typically underestimate the cost of providing messaging services. According to Osterman, one-quarter of decision makers believe that their organizations spend less than $10 per seat per month to provide messaging services, while another one-third believe they spend anywhere from $10 to $15 per seat per month – but this cost estimate leaves out several important factors, particularly maintenance.

The research firm also found that the use of cloud-based email can allow organizations to focus more on their core business rather than devote resources to managing the messaging infrastructure.

Another analyst firm, Forrester Research, found that for a 15,000-person firm requiring archiving, the fully loaded cost of on-premise email was $25.18 per user per month compared to a cost of $8.47 for Google Apps.

But it's not all about cost savings – you need more than just a cheaper messaging solution. You also want one that can help your workforce achieve more. Moving to the cloud and Google Apps can help you streamline your IT infrastructure and provide a platform for innovation and increased employee satisfaction.

On October 8, join us for a live webcast as Google Apps expert, Rhonda Stites, walks through a simple financial model that evaluates the savings in adopting Google Apps. You will hear about real customer experiences, get your questions answered and have the tools you need to bring substantial value to your organization.

Register now to learn more about the potential cost savings for your organization.

Save Money with Cloud Computing and Google Apps
Thursday, October 8, 2009
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT

We hope to see you there!

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

*Note: The pricing and features available in each architecture vary by provider. Download the full independent research report, “Should Your Email Live In The Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis,” Forrester Research, Inc., January 2009.

Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.

AMR Research and Mercer discuss the ROI of Content Management Systems (hint: they need search)

2009-10-06T07:49:00.000-07:00

In large enterprises today, employees and administrators are trying to make sense of the volumes of content created by and living inside their companies, and quite a few of these organizations are turning to enterprise content management (ECM) systems. According to Forrester Research, ECM license revenue was projected to reach $3.9B in 2008.

Yet, over the past few years, as companies have spent significant dollars on their ECM systems, they've come to realize one thing. Content management systems are great at being repositories of information, yet individual employees still struggle to find the exact document they are looking for – even if they know it's in the ECM system. In other words, finding information can be a painful process.

Which leads us to the latest thinking from AMR Research, which provides comprehensive research and advisory services for supply chain and IT executives. Jim Murphy, Research Director for Knowledge Management at AMR Research, is looking at effective search as the missing element of a content management solution. While many content management systems have a built-in search feature, the capability and relevance of this functionality is typically not up to par. Murphy has been talking to many enterprises who are increasingly looking to separate enterprise search solutions to provide high quality search across not only their ECM system, but across other major repositories in their companies as well.

One such enterprise Murphy has spoken to is Mercer. As a global services company in 180 cities and 40 countries, Mercer has 19,000 employees, many of whom need to access information instantly to effectively serve their clients. Their business depends on leveraging intellectual capital and sharing best practices. So even though their intranet linked to Livelink, an ECM system which stored 1.5 million documents, there was no comprehensive search tool spanning all of the companies. After evaluating many different search technologies, Mercer made the choice to bring in the Google Search Appliance to provide universal search across their intranet.

As Haroon Suleman, Mercer's Lead Enterprise Architect for enterprise search, explains, "The Google Search Appliance won hands down. The fact that the Google Search Appliance provided a bridge to Livelink, and can provide future SharePoint connectivity if needed, was a major selling point."

Both Murphy and Suleman will join us on Thursday, October 8 for a webinar titled "Search: A Vital Element of an ECM Strategy." Murphy will present AMR's views on the ECM and enterprise search space, and Suleman will share the Mercer story, discussing Mercer's business needs, needs behind enterprise search, and specific metrics from users on how the Google Search Appliance has been increasing productivity. Register for the webinar and join the conversation – and the question and answer session at the end of the session.

Search: A Vital Element of an ECM Strategy

Thursday, October 8, 2009

11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT

Maybe ECM systems need good search too, after all.

Posted by Vijay Koduri, Google Search Appliance team

Google Enterprise Blog

​Google Apps Premier Edition Innovation – Year in Review

Google Apps Connector for BlackBerry Enterprise Server now connects businesses of all sizes

Saluting Google Power Posters

From Microsoft Exchange 2007 to Google Apps: the Delta Hotels and Resorts story

A better web-powered workspace for today's workplace

Gone Google at EDUCAUSE 2009

Governments Gone Google

Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps? One government agency goes Google

'Tis the shopping season: introducing Google Commerce Search

Building your business around Google Docs

Single Sign-on to ZoHo, Tripit, SocialWok and more from Google Apps

How non-profit organizations go Google

A full complement of tools for a quarter the cost

New: refinement options for metadata in Google Site Search

Singing a new tune: Google Search Appliance now includes automated tuning, better connectivity

Guest post: Australia's Mortgage Choice goes Google

Over 2 million companies have #goneGoogle around the world

Geek Out on the technical details of a Google Apps migration

Faculty and staff are going Google, too

Easily share collections of files with Google Docs shared folders

UK Universities going Google

Research finds that IT departments are thinking in the cloud

Changes to Google Maps in the US

Get your money's worth with cloud-based messaging

AMR Research and Mercer discuss the ROI of Content Management Systems (hint: they need search)

Google Apps Premier Edition Innovation – Year in Review