Live Webinar on Thursday, February 24th - A case study: Iowa DOT Takes Google Maps into Enterprise GIS

Faced with increased demand for live traffic and road closure information, the State of Iowa Department of Transportation (DOT) has chosen to leverage Google Maps API Premier to combine and visualize geospatial data from multiple sources. Join us for a webinar on February 24th to learn why Google Maps API Premier was the ideal tool for presenting traffic and road-related data to the public. We’ll also highlight other ways that this product can be used in conjunction with other enterprise geospatial tools to build all sorts of effective, public-facing/public serving websites.

Register now for this webinar which runs on Thursday, February 24, 2:00PM EST/11:00AM PST. You will learn:

• How the Iowa DOT has used Google Maps API Premier to unlock the value of siloed and stored geospatial data.
• How the Iowa DOT has integrated Google Maps API Premier with Oracle Spatial and ESRI tools within the Enterprise.
• How underlying geospatial data is managed throughout the Iowa DOT.

Who Should Attend:
Anyone in state and local government involved in map-based application development for public-facing websites. Other businesses and organizations looking to connect with the public using Google Maps API Premier will also find this webinar valuable.

Posted by Wendy Wu, Google Apps for Government Team

Google Apps just got smarter: introducing the Apps Marketplace’s new EDU category

The education technology space has seen an explosion of new offerings in the past few years. What has been missing is a centralized platform for schools and universities to easily evaluate and utilize web apps. Today we are excited to launch an education category in the Google Apps Marketplace designed specifically to help schools and universities easily discover and deploy new web applications that integrate with their existing Google Apps accounts.

The new education category includes over 20 applications from 19 vendors ranging from learning management systems (LMS) to student tools and teaching aids – all of which integrate with Google Apps for Education. Each app can be accessed through single sign-on and the Google universal navigation bar and many offer deeper integrations that synchronize with Google Calendar and Documents.

This new education category will make it easier for schools to have more web apps at their fingertips, including popular existing apps such as Aviary, Grockit, and LearnBoost as well as the new apps launching today.



Learning Management
Now faculty can bring their classroom management to the cloud with apps such as:

• Haiku: an LMS that allows teachers to create media-rich class websites, give and auto-grade assessments, annotate assignments and interact online with students.
• LearnBoost: an all-in-one gradebook and lesson plan software for teachers that includes tools to visualize data and student performance.
• And other classroom management tools such as eduARC, Class.io, PlanbookEdu, ThinkWave SIS and Applane SIS, gradebooks such as Engrade and ThinkWave Gradebook, and assessment tools such as EduBrite and RCampus iRubric.

Learning Aids
Teachers can help student learn more effectively with web-based learning aids like:

• BrainPOP: an app that offers animated, curriculum-based content that enhances student learning in numerous ways, from illustrating complex concepts to reviewing before a test.
• DreamBox: a tool that helps students learn math through interactive lessons and gives teachers reporting dashboards to monitor individual student progress.
• And other teaching aids like Grockit, BuzzMath and LearnThatWord.

Student and Admin Tools
Administrators and students can tackle other education needs with even more tools:

• EasyBib: an automatic bibliography composer that helps students format sources quickly and accurately to cite in papers.
• Digication: an online e-Portfolio creation tool that helps students share and showcase their work and achievements online.
• And other student and admin tools like Aviary, Edutone Sakai Connector, Edutone Moodle Connector, Leveled Library and Rcampus e-Portfolio.

Thousands of universities, colleges and K-12 schools around the world with over 10 million users already deploy Google Apps in their classrooms. The applications we're introducing today into the new Marketplace education category are just the beginning. We look forward to expanding and strengthening our offerings as we continue to add new education tools, including web applications by Blackboard, Knewton and the Khan Academy already on the way.

To learn more about the education category of the Apps Marketplace – and hear directly from the developers of these applications – register to attend live Google webinars and Q&A on Wednesday, February 2nd.

Manage your school in the cloud with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring classroom management tools Haiku and LearnBoost
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
10:00 a.m. PST / 1:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Help students learn more effectively with the Google Apps Marketplace
Featuring web-based learning tools Grockit, BrainPOP, and DreamBox
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
4:00 p.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. EST
Register here

Posted by Dennis Troper, Director of Product Management, Google Apps Marketplace

Upcoming Google Apps for Education professional development webinars

In November, we kicked off a series of biweekly webinars aimed at helping educators learn ways to use Google Apps in the classroom. These sessions, taught by Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers, have received a great response and we've decided to hold them more frequently – you can now tune in every Tuesday at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET to hear tips and techniques for using Google Apps for Education.

Register to attend one of the upcoming webinars in the series today and on the following Tuesdays:

• Jan 25: Introduction to forms in Google Docs
• Feb 1: Advanced forms in Google Docs
• Feb 8: Embrace your inner Einstein: Using Google Apps for the Google Science Fair
• Feb 15: Managing Google Docs with your classroom
• Feb 22: Building a class site with Google Sites

Archived recordings from past Google Apps for Education webinars can also be found in our resource center.

Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps for Education Team

Live webcast this Thursday: “Google on Google”

Have you ever been curious about how we run our business on Google’s products? Join us Thursday for a live webcast with Julie Pearl, a Director in Google's Corporate Engineering group. Julie leads the team responsible for building and operating Google's own enterprise IT services on top of Google products (known internally as running "Google on Google"). Julie's team manages messaging and collaboration for all of Google, and builds a wide range of custom IT applications that are deployed to personal computers and mobile phones.

Register for this live and interactive webcast on Thursday, December 16th, 2:00pm ET/ 11:00am PT to learn from Julie how Google empowers more than 20,000 users in 20 countries, using technologies such as:

• Google Apps for Business (messaging, collaboration, and communications)
  
• Google App Engine (web application development on Google's cloud computing infrastructure)
  
• Android (mobile operating system and application platform)
  

Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team

SAP joins the Google Apps Marketplace with SAP StreamWork

Editor’s Note: This is a guest blog post from David Meyer, senior vice president for On-Demand, Productivity and Sustainability Solutions at SAP, the leading business software vendor to more than 100,000 customers in over 120 countries.

What did I miss at the last meeting? Why do I have seven different copies of a spreadsheet named “Final Version”? Where should we host the next event? These are all questions and problems that can easily be resolved through a new way of working in the cloud available through the integration of Google Apps and SAP StreamWork, now available in the Google Apps Marketplace.

SAP StreamWork brings together people and information - from the web, your desktop, or business systems - and applies structure to discussions with business tools including pro/con tables, SWOT analyses, and polls to drive fast, meaningful results. Think about how easy it can be to allocate resources, prioritize sales leads, or define new marketing campaigns in a single, well-organized location. With Google Apps integration, the SAP StreamWork environment will be joined with the tools you are already familiar with in the cloud.

SAP StreamWork will work with OpenID so you can use your Google Apps login to access your SAP StreamWork account and navigate to it through the Google universal navigation bar. Additionally, Google Apps will also be accessible directly from SAP StreamWork, providing you with the ability to use Google’s calendaring, email and document creation and management tools as part of your problem-solving process in SAP StreamWork. Direct integration will be available for users in the first part of 2011.

In joining the Google Apps Marketplace, we see a great opportunity to reach over 3 million Google Apps businesses who have already embraced the cloud and we invite them to try out SAP StreamWork.

Join us for a live webinar and Q&A session with Google and SAP at 11am on December 14th demonstrating the SAP StreamWork integration with Google Apps and discussing best practices for making decisions faster with distributed teams.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Product Marketing, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Google Apps and Smartsheet support an evolution in real estate

Editor’s Note: Guest blogger, Brent Frei, is the founder of Smartsheet.com, an online project management from the Google Apps Marketplace. His post explores the technology trends in the real estate industry, highlighting several firms who have moved their businesses to Google Apps and deployed Smartsheet.

Google Apps and the Real Estate Industry

A growing number of real estate firms manage their businesses with Smartsheet - for project management, buy & sell coordination, deal management and so on. We spent some time talking with our real estate customers to better understand how and why they use Smartsheet. Several themes emerged consistently, regardless of whether the customers were individual users or international enterprise teams. Most notably, the majority are Google Apps users, and Smartsheet's integration with Apps is key to their overall success.

Here are several of the companies we surveyed across a range of real estate services.

• NetGeneration is a combination real estate brokerage and financial planning service company.
• Agent Evolution is a web design and social media agency helping agents to engage via digital media.
• Encore Development Properties and Encore Realty are firms that buy, develop, and sell properties.

These firms have several things in common:

1. They deal with a wide range of stakeholders: Real estate companies are diverse collaborations between sellers, buyers, agents, title, insurance, mortgage, brokers, contractors, inspectors, escrow agents, and many others. Finding tools that work well for the company and will be readily adopted by external collaborators is often nearly impossible.
2. They use spreadsheets and email as their primary tools - Email and spreadsheets are the only commonly adopted tools amongst all the stakeholders. Emails get reliable responses, and spreadsheets are familiar and effective - both are available from anywhere in Google Apps.
3. They want more specialized tools to be pre-integrated with Google Apps - The specialty tools that work best alongside Gmail have had the highest adoption rates. Project management is one of the highest priority specialty applications.

Google Apps and Smartsheet are a perfect combination
Smartsheet’s spreadsheet-like layout and tight integration with Gmail and Google Docs have made it a successful project management tool where other tools have failed in the real estate vertical. Users who are logged into Gmail are automatically logged into Smartsheet, and existing spreadsheets can be imported “as is” into Smartsheet where those sheets gain the ability to attach files and Google Docs as well as threaded discussions to any row. Updates to discrete parts of a sheet can be managed through email by stakeholders who have not had the entire sheet shared with them.

All the project management automation is embedded in the tools that the stakeholders will use - without training. You can read the full case studies on Smartsheet’s blog, but here are a few choice excerpts:

“We have 10 full time employees, each collaborating with dozens of stakeholders,” reported NetGeneration co-founder Brian Davis. He found himself with an unmanageable portfolio of specialty solutions, few of which were integrated. “We tried multiple project and task management solutions but none were adopted as part of the daily work flow. Emails and traditional spreadsheets became the default....”

“Moving over to Google Apps was pivotal moment for us,” says Chad Johnson, president and COO of Agent Evolution. “We wanted to do everything under one umbrella. With Google Apps we had our business suite set and Google Apps Marketplace gave us partner solutions that were already integrated, like Smartsheet for online project management.”

“Google Apps and Smartsheet are easy to use right out of the gate,” says John Stilwell, President and Founder of Encore Development Properties and Realty. “Our members can jump in and use the tools right away. By using Google Apps and Gmail it enables us to have everything in one place. It makes a complex and sophisticated process streamlined and efficient and gives us a great selling tool for prospective investors and clients. It shows them that we are professional and have the capabilities to track our business.”

Conclusion
The real estate business has a plethora of stakeholders and moving parts. That doesn’t mean the software tools need to be equally complex. Google Apps and Smartsheet are a combination that works simply and effectively the way people do for a wide range of operational needs in real estate.

To learn more about how customers use Smartsheet with Google Apps and other Marketplace apps, come to a live Google webinar featuring Dlink CIO, Michael Walsh.
 
Optimizing Business Processes with the Google Apps Marketplace
Tuesday, December 14th, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT
Register here

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Improving team collaboration and productivity with Google Sites

Effective collaboration has become a key driver to improve team productivity. Project teams, often located across disparate locations and time zones, produce and distribute content in different formats and platforms. Teams need to consolidate relevant information in one place that’s easy to navigate and retrieve. Contributors and reviewers have specific needs to manage the creative process, maintain the project plan and keep all stakeholders informed.

With Google Sites, you can easily manage projects and create, share, find, and publish content across your organization. Easy to use features such as site and page templates and embedded documents make it easy for any user to create useful sites. Google Sites can be used for company intranets, portals, team project and more. Furthermore, the Google Sites API gives third-party developers a way to access, integrate with, and extend the platform. The To-Do gadget is an example of extending a Google Site with a tool that can enable teams to track and manage tasks.

Join Scott Johnston, Group Product Manager of Google Sites, and me for a live webinar on Tuesday, December 7th to learn more about improving collaboration and team productivity. I’ll start with an overview of Google Sites and highlight features that can help teams be more productive. We will be featuring a live demo.

Register to attend the live webinar on 12/7 @ 10am PST / 1pm EST / 6 pm GMT.

We hope to see you there.

Posted by Lisa Ding, Google Sites Team

Live Webinar: Jaguar Land Rover’s journey to the cloud

On Friday 26th November we'll be joined by Andy Bennett, IT Operations Manager at Jaguar Land Rover. Andy will share his team's experience moving more than 15,000 Jaguar Land Rover employees to Google Apps. He will detail both the resulting cost savings and the new ways of working that Google Apps has encouraged.

Jeremy Vincent, CIO of Jaguar Land Rover, gives us a taste of the session:

"We switched our entire global organisation (15,000+ users) to Gmail, Calendar and Contacts in one weekend in December 2009, saving around £1.75m in total one-off migration costs as we separated from our former parent company.

Now, almost one year in, we have a truly enterprise-wide common critical business application which is delivering benefits continuously, especially as we turn on more Google applications and as Google continuously improves its product set."

To hear more about Jaguar Land Rover’s switch to Google Apps attend this live webcast, Friday 26th Nov 2010 at 11.00 GMT. Register today.

This session will be moderated by Angela Ashenden, Principal Analyst at MWD Advisors.

Google Apps for Education professional development webinars

As more and more states and school districts are going Google, we're hearing great ideas for integrating Google Apps into the classroom. To help educators make the most of Google Apps, we're starting a biweekly webinar series focused on Google Apps for Education professional development.

Webinars will be led by Google Apps for Education Certified Trainers and held biweekly on Tuesdays, 4:30PM PT.

We kicked off the series on November 9 with an overview of Google Sites. The next webinar in the series will be tomorrow, November 23, at 4:30PM PT/7:30PM ET on the topic of Student Newspapers and Google Apps - register today.

Future webinars in this series include:
Dec 7 - Taking the core features of Google Apps to the next level
Dec 21 - The Collaborative STEM classroom
Jan 4 - Becoming a Gmail Ninja

Recordings from past Google Apps webinars can also be found in our resource center.

To get a glimpse of how a teacher might use Google Apps in the classroom today, you can also view our new K-12 demo:



Posted by Dana Nguyen, Google Apps Education Team

Security First - A Chat with Google Apps Security and Privacy Experts

Google Apps customers experience both cost savings and productivity benefits, and more than 3 million of businesses have made the switch to Google Apps. To answer some of the questions businesses often ask about the security and privacy of data that is stored in Google Apps, we released the Google Apps Security Whitepaper in June. And to provide further visibility into how we protect the data in Google Apps, we are hosting a webcast on November 18th, 2010. Register today to attend this webcast.

In the webcast, Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security for Google Apps, will describe some of the challenges of securing traditional on-premise IT infrastructure and explain how Google’s cloud computing architecture can offer an improved security model. John Collins, Google Enterprise Trust Product Manager, will then talk about how Google protects the privacy of the data that is stored in Google Apps.

We will take questions from the audience, so if your business or organization is considering a move to Google Apps, this session will be a great opportunity.

Register to attend this webcast, Thursday, November 18th at 11:00 AM PST / 2:00 PM EST / 19:00 GMT.

Posted by Adam Swidler, Google Apps team

Larimer County Moves to Google Apps in Just 3 Days

Editor’s note: Today, our guest blogger is Andy Paratore, CIO of Larimer County in Colorado. Home to nearly 300,000 residents in north-central Colorado, the county’s offices are in the city of Fort Collins. Larimer County shares a border with the State of Wyoming, and both will soon have a common email system, as well.

Please join Andy for a live webcast about making a rapid transition to the cloud this Wednesday, November 17, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT. Register today.

While most people watched fireworks over the July 4th weekend, the Larimer County government used the holiday to switch all our employees to Google Apps. With this “big bang” approach, it took just three days for us to migrate our 1,800 employees and over four million email messages to Google’s web-based email and collaboration applications. As a result of this rapid switch, the county saved implementation costs, improved mobile access to information, and provided employees with new and innovative applications to help us do our jobs.

Of course, careful planning and preparation were key to making this fast move to the cloud. We did a detailed comparison of Google Apps and several on-premise solutions and found Google delivered the best value and features. We had 100 county employees pilot the applications for six weeks, which allowed us to identify and resolve issues in advance of the big migration. And we took advantage of the contract put in place by the Colorado Statewide Internet Portal Authority (SIPA) and Denver-based Google Apps partner Tempus Nova.

By switching to Google from our prior on-premise Novell Groupwise system, Larimer County benefits in many ways. We initially expect to save $50,000-$75,000 annually in server and support costs, and hope to save even more in the future as we take advantage of more capabilities of Google Apps; these are important savings for a county facing challenging budget circumstances. Perhaps more importantly, we’re enabling county employees to be more productive: offering additional collaboration capabilities like chat, real-time document sharing, and easy-to-build websites; allowing access to information from work, home or on the road with the same user interface; and making them less dependent on IT with an extensive set of online training and help tools that allow them to resolve questions themselves.

I look forward to sharing our experience with other organizations that are looking to make a rapid move to the cloud, please join me on Wednesday’s webinar to learn more.



By Andy Paratore, CIO, Larimer County

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Apps for Government Team

Do you have an informative and fun Google Apps story to share? Please submit it here.

Live webinar on cloud-based CRM apps built for your Google Apps 11/9

Customer relationship management (CRM) is the most frequent search query in the Google Apps Marketplace, showing a trend of businesses moving their customer management to the cloud. The flexibility of cloud-based CRMs means there is no longer one traditional type of CRM, siloed in an on-premise server. Marketplace CRM apps can now help you manage your contacts across any channel, including emails, phone calls, projects, and even social networks, while working in sync with many other tools that you use.

Join us in a live webinar next Tuesday, Nov 9th, where I will host three Marketplace CRM vendors to discuss how your business can use cloud-based CRM apps:

• Rodrigo Vaca, Director of Marketing at Zoho
• Sachin Garg, Director of Strategy & Business Development at Applane
• Bart Lorang, CEO of CloudCenter, the maker of Rainmaker

The Google Apps Marketplace offers a wide range of richly integrated CRM apps, take this unique opportunity to hear directly from the developers of these three apps.

Webinar: How Google Apps and integrated cloud-based CRMs can change your business
Tuesday, November 9th, 2010
10:00 a.m. PDT / 1:00 p.m. EDT
Register here

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Hear about best practices for moving to Google Apps from Google’s Deployment Lead, Alex Diacre

Google’s Deployment Lead, Alex Diacre, will be hosting a live webcast this Thursday, November 4th at 11:00 AM PT. Alex has been at Google since 2007 and has been leading the Enterprise Deployment Team in deploying Google Apps at businesses all over the world. Join us to hear from Alex and his team about exactly what you need to do to deploy Google Apps in your organization.

This live and interactive webcast with the Google Enterprise Deployment Team will give you tips for replacing traditional on-premise applications such as email with Google Apps:

* Learn how to scope your deployment process
* Hear about the key design points for moving to Google Apps
* Discover best practices that can be used by your organization

Register today for this live webcast Thursday, November 4, 2010 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT

Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team

Join us for a live webcast with Baird & Warner to learn why they chose Google Apps for mobility and real time communication

Join us tomorrow for a live webcast with Mark Steward, IT Director at Baird & Warner, the oldest residential real estate brokerage in the nation. With 26 branch offices servicing more than 300 communities throughout northeastern Illinois, Baird & Warner provides a full range of services for consumers including residential sales, financial services, title services and home services.

Earlier this year Baird & Warner began looking at improving their messaging system to help their 1,600 mobile and independent agents stay connected and access information in real time. They decided to use Google Apps because of how much money it saved them over Microsoft Exchange and its ability to scale as they company grew.

Mark says that, “improved mobile access to email is a big win for us. From a cost perspective, with Google Apps there is nothing additional that we need to do, buy or maintain, to enable mobile devices. It just works straight out of the box on virtually any mobile device that our employees care to use.

Beyond better mobile email access, faster performance and infrastructure cost savings, we’re also pretty happy about not having to spend any time maintaining and upgrading our messaging systems. What's equally important, however, is that our employees like using Google Apps. Our Realtors® drive our business, and we need to give them the tools that allow them to be more productive on behalf of their clients.”

Join us for a live webcast with Mark Steward, CIO of Baird & Warner tomorrow, October 19, 2010 12:00 p.m. EDT / 9:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT. Register now.



Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team

Save Money and Improve Collaboration with Google Apps

Wentworth Property Management Corp is a large property management company made up of over 40 offices specializing in security, rental and homeowner’s insurance, concierge, cleaning and real estate services. Keeping all those offices and people connected and maintaining all of their Exchange servers became very difficult and very expensive. Wentworth needed an easier -- and less costly -- way for its employees to stay connected and to continue to scale as company continues to grow. The answer? Google Apps, which has already proven an invaluable tool for helping geographically distributed teams more easily coordinate their efforts.

Join this live TechRepublic webcast, featuring Wentworth CIO Manu Jaggi, to learn exactly why Wentworth chose Google Apps and what it’s meant for the organization:

* Discover the most common criteria for comparing and evaluating Google Apps against alternative solutions such as Microsoft Exchange
* Hear how Wentworth uses the full range of Google Apps to more effectively communicate and collaborate across many geographically distributed offices
* See how eliminating inefficiencies and and focusing on innovation, not IT server maintenance can save money and improve an organization’s productivity

Tomorrow, Tuesday, September 21, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT.



Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team

Customer Perspectives on Evaluating the Security of Going Google

Editor's Note: Please join us for a webcast on Thursday where two Google Apps customers will share their approach to evaluating the security of Google's cloud computing solutions. MeadWestvaco (MWV), a $6.6 billion packaging company recently consolidated 10 email systems to Google Apps and Boise State University deployed Google Apps to 23,000 students, faculty, and staff.

Chet Loveland, Global Information Security and Privacy Officer at MWV, holds 23 years of experience in the Information Technology industry and was formerly an Information Security Manager for Federal Reserve Information Technology. Brian Bolt, Lead Systems Engineer for Boise State's Office of Information Technology, holds 15 years of experience in the Information Technology industry, with an MBA from Boise State, where he has worked to emphasize the alignment of IT infrastructure and services to support the business needs of the university.

Chet and Brian will be joined on the webcast by Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security for Google Apps. Eran defines and implements security strategy for Google's suite of solutions for enterprises. Prior to joining Google in 2007, Eran was the US Chief Information Security Officer for PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC).

Learn what security and compliance questions to ask of a cloud computer provider and how Google addresses them on a live webcast on Thursday, July 22, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT. Register today.

Google Apps is one of the fastest growing cloud computing solutions available today. Not surprisingly, many organizations considering solutions like Google Apps have questions about security and compliance. When moving into the cloud, it is important to consider factors such as how the cloud provider fights spam, malware, and phishing, designs identity management systems for hosted web apps, and monitors its network for potential threats. Institutions must consider ways to protect intellectual property, compliance with regulations, and evaluating information about the cloud provider's data center and network infrastructure.

At MWV, the main considerations were reducing IT costs and consolidating ten different email systems into one. At Boise State University, the primary concern was safeguarding student records and information. Despite differing priorities, most organizations today face common underlying security challenges and needs.

Both MWV and Boise State asked themselves:

• Where is the best place for my applications and data?
• Why is security so tough? What are some of the issues with the traditional model?
• Can hosting data in the cloud be as secure or perhaps more secure, than in traditional environments?
• What are the full costs if security is handled internally? (considering firewalls, server upgrades, maintenance, mail filtering, anti-spam, and more)
• How can we maximize productivity by enabling people to work anytime, anywhere while minimizing the amount of data that is stored on distributed devices?
• How will the cloud provider affect costs and the reliability of security systems?
• How do we educate internal stakeholders and users on security and compliance issues to mitigate risks and help ensure adherence to best practices?
• And, ultimately, what are Google's practices and technologies that can help us maximize security while reducing costs?

There are always plenty of questions and follow up discussions when considering the people, best practices, and technologies required to minimize security threats. There are also many lessons to learn from two Google Apps customers who have moved into the cloud – with security and compliance at the top of their lists to address. Learn more from experienced Google Apps customers and from Google's security chief for enterprise applications.

Please join us for a lively discussion of the security and compliance considerations for moving into the cloud.

Boise State and MWV on Evaluating the Security of Going Google
Thursday, July 22, 2010
2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT

Posted by Serena Satyasai, the Google Apps team

For more information on the security of Google Apps, please visit www.google.com/apps/trust

Going Google: a webinar with Brown University

UPDATE, 07/14/2010: Please note that we have postponed this webinar until Wednesday, August 18. Please register here to confirm your participation in this event. Thank you and we look forward to sharing Brown University's experience deploying Google Apps.

A few weeks ago, we announced that Brown University has gone Google for all students, staff, and faculty on campus. If you’re interested in learning more about why they made this decision, we encourage you to register for the upcoming EDUCAUSE Live! Webcast – part of the Spotlight on Cloud Computing Series – that features Michael Pickett, the Vice President and Chief Information Officer at Brown discussing this decision.

In this free, hour-long web seminar “Google Apps at Brown,” you’ll learn how Brown deployed Google Apps to its 6,000 students and why they’ve decided to extend the service to include faculty and staff as well. Register here to tune in for more information about how these decisions were made, the options they considered, lessons they learned, and successes to date.

Google Apps for Students and Staff at Brown University

Wednesday July 14, 2010

1:00 p.m. EDT / 10:00 a.m. PDT

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Google Apps EDU team

109-year-old mechanical contracting company "goes Google"

Editor’s note: Today’s guest bloggers are Aaron McCarthy, IT Director for Limbach Facility Services, Cristine Leifheit, Team Lead. McCarthy and Leifheit recently spearheaded the move to Google Apps for Limbach’s 500 employees. A mechanical contractor founded in 1901, Limbach Facility Services switched from Lotus Notes®/Domino® to "go Google" and gain 25GB mailboxes and built-in disaster recovery capabilities at no extra charge.

Aaron McCarthy holds 13 years of IT experience, 7 of which are with Limbach Facility Services. He has a Bachelor in MIS from Oakland University (Rochester, MI) and a Master in Business Information Technology from Walsh College (Troy, MI). Cristine Leifheit, PHR has worked with the Human Resources Department of Limbach for the past 11 years. She served as the Communications Team Leader throughout the selection and implementation of Google Apps alongside the Limbach Corporate IT Department.

Aaron and Cristine will be joined by Google Apps partner Cloud Sherpas on a live webcast on Thursday July 8, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT. Register today.

At Limbach, we had a Lotus Notes/Domino system and, despite it being a recent version, the Notes system was hampering the innovation of our 500 employees. As a construction company, we have a workforce that is typically non-tech savvy. We are constantly learning what is required to bridge their needs while providing the advanced tools required to improve the way we do business.

We formed a “2012 Committee” comprised of non-technical staff from nine branches to better set up the company for the future. Part of their job was to re-evaluate our email system. When a new hire and recent college graduate on the committee suggested moving to Google Apps, management initially scoffed.

We did a line-by-line comparison of Google Apps, Microsoft® Exchange, and Lotus Notes and were quickly convinced of the value of Google Apps. We could get 25GB mailboxes—eliminating the constant strain on our small IT staff of four to meet ongoing requests for larger mailboxes. We also got built-in disaster recovery capabilities at no additional charge. Google’s mail capabilities were unmatched, but then we considered that Google Apps also provides great collaboration tools.

We did a small pilot with committee members and then a broader one with 50 users that helped us understand our full deployment requirements. The pilots were a wise move, and they helped us transition to Google Apps smoothly. Things moved quickly; we were able to decommission two servers just two months after deployment.

Today, we use the full suite of Google Apps tools, including Google Sites for our intranet. Google Apps has also become a platform for innovation. One safety manager used Google video chat to broadcast a helicopter lift of an HVAC system onto a roof to staff members at a branch office. We also added a cloud-based workflow tool from the Google Apps Marketplace.

It’s been a positive experience for us and we’d be happy to share out insights. Please join us for an interactive webinar!

Getting 25GB Inboxes and Built-in Disaster Recovery with Google Apps
Thursday, July 8, 2010
2:00 p.m. EDT / 11:00 a.m. PDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT

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®.

The City of Los Angeles on Going Google

Editor's note: Today's guest blogger is Kevin Crawford, Assistant General Manager for the City of Los Angeles Information Technology Agency. Kevin was part of a team of technology executives that chose Google Apps six months ago to support the city's 30,000+ employees and 44 different departments, from police and fire to transportation and more. In the past, Kevin has served as CIO of Sound Transit, senior manager of IT infrastructure at Port of Seattle, and support manager at Weyerhauser. Kevin shares his thoughts about how the US's second largest city has gone Google in perhaps one of the most-watched technology deployments in recent memory. This post is a follow-up to the initial blog post on the City of LA from Randi Levin, CTO.

Kevin will speak at a live webcast this Thursday, June 24, 2010 at 2:00 PM (EDT) | 11:00 AM (PDT) Register today.

The City of Los Angeles currently faces a $400 million deficit, but from a technology standpoint, we still have to provide advanced tools to 30,000+ employees and 44 different departments – technology is vital to the inner workings of the city. Running a city of this size requires people to work together, from designing and operating public facilities to policing the streets.

At the city’s Information Technology Agency (ITA), we are responsible for managing all of the City's enterprise applications – including email. Up until about six months ago, we had an aging, on-premise email system. Our Novell Groupwise system didn't work on some mobile devices and we had to enforce inbox space quotas that City employees found limiting.

In addition to providing better collaboration tools and remote access, we also needed archiving and disaster recovery capabilities to safeguard information. Disaster recovery precautions are especially important in this part of the world where earthquakes are not a question of if, but when.

We looked at 15 different proposals and went through extensive due diligence, finally gaining the City Council's unanimous buy-in with a 12-0 vote in favor of a proposal from Google and CSC. We found that Google Apps provided the richest, most cost-effective and efficient communication solutions. That was six months ago. Since then, we've worked with CSC to implement Google Apps City-wide.

By ITA estimates, Google Apps is saving Los Angeles $5.5 million over five years by allowing us to shift resources currently dedicated to email to other purposes. For example, moving to Google has freed up nearly 100 servers that were previously used for our existing email system, which in turn – an unanticipated benefit – is lowering our electricity bills by hundreds of thousands over five years. Los Angeles found Google's system availability of 99.9% and service levels for response in the event of an issue to be equivalent – if not better – to what we could provide ourselves. In short, this decision to go Google helps us safeguard information and get the most out of the city's IT budget.



Because we are such a large government organization, people are eager to hear how our deployment is going. We also built a Google Site to help us easily provide updates on the process and gather input from our user base. We'd be pleased to discuss the progress we've made in the six months since we unanimously decided to go to Google Apps. Please join me for an interactive webinar!

On switching 30,000 Employees to Google Apps
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Time: 2:00 PM (EDT) | 11:00 AM (PDT)


Posted by Serena Satyasai, The Google Apps Team

Do you have an informative and fun Google Apps story to share? Please submit it here.

Not yet a year old, Google Commerce Search turns “2.0”

As we just announced on the Official Google Blog, today we’re launching Google Commerce Search 2.0 for online retailers in the United States and United Kingdom. With the new release, we’re offering both greater control and customization for retailers and a better experience for online shoppers.

The e-commerce industry is changing rapidly, and we’re responding quickly to meet retailer’s changing needs. Just seven months after our initial launch we’re adding a host of features to help retailers provide the best possible shopping experience on their sites.

• Enhanced merchant customization: With the full merchandising dashboard, Google Commerce Search 2.0 gives e-merchants more control over promotions, ranking rules and filtering customization—and no custom coding means that marketers and merchandisers can do all of this themselves.
• Simple promotion set-up and management: New intuitive retailer controls like time-based promotions, custom filtering of results, and simple ranking rules mean retailers can “set it and forget it” using the new ranking wizards.
• Better browsing and navigation: No matter how advanced the search function, some shoppers will always visit your site looking to browse and discover new products. People can now shop by browsing your site as well as searching directly for products.
• Evolved shopper experience: One of the most popular features on Google.com but rarely found on retail websites, “as-you-type suggestions” help sites become more user-friendly and fast. Now, with query autocompletion retailers can offer common queries to shoppers in real time, as they type, without any custom coding.
• Search quality improvements: Google Commerce Search continues to build on the speed and end-user innovation featured in the first release. Because it’s hosted in the Google cloud, search results are returned to shoppers in less than a second. Spelling and stemming dictionaries and new custom synonyms mean that shopping on a retail site can be as easy and accurate as searching on Google.com.

Each of these improvements can make an impact on the usability and success of your online store, but collectively they have real ROI potential. Because more and more consumers are turning to the web to both research and complete purchases, eliminating frustration and improving site usability can lead to major advances in both online and offline channels.

For example, Google Commerce Search customer Discount Office Items is seeing immediate ROI. “When we saw how fast we could recoup our spending and start making more money due to better, faster search, the decision to implement Google Commerce Search was clear. Since deployment, visitor volumes and revenue have jumped 6.4%. Search is now one of the strongest elements of our site – all with less load on our servers and less time spent on maintenance for the IT staff,” says Tim Horton, Co-Founder and CEO.

Finally, we’re also making the benefits of Google Commerce Search 2.0 available to a wider range of retailers by introducing a pricing model that starts at $25k/year. For details on how Google Commerce Search can help your business, contact us.

To learn more, sign up for our upcoming webinar hosted by Chain Store Age (details below). You’ll hear from Nitin Mangtani, Senior Product Manager, in conversation with Google Commerce Search customers about how these new features can help bring your e-commerce site to the next level.

Google Commerce Search: Delivering Search Innovations to Retailers and Shoppers
Wednesday, June 23, 2010
1:00 p.m. EDT / 10:00 a.m. PDT / 5:00 p.m. GMT

Posted by Carl Evankovich, Software Engineer