A year in review: work the way you live

Posted by Amit Singh, President, Google Enterprise 

Ten years ago, business technology was at the forefront of innovation and productivity. But there’s a fundamental shift underway: in the last few years, consumer technology has begun to outpace business technology. People have fallen in love with the simplicity and freedom of living in the cloud with the help of modern browsers and smartphones—and they want to bring that experience to the workplace.

This is where Google comes in. For the better part of the past decade, we’ve worked to extend our popular consumer products—everything from Gmail and Google Drive to Maps, Google+ and Search—to meet your business needs. It should be easy for you to work better together, from anywhere, with secure (and simple!) tools. Here’s a look back at some key highlights from 2012.

Work securely...
Keeping your information secure is one of our top priorities. To that end, domain administrators can now require their employees to use 2-step verification, an additional layer of security that reduces the chance of unauthorized account access. Your company can also use Google Apps Vault, a solution for managing and archiving critical information for legal and regulatory reasons. If your business operates outside the U.S., we now offer Model Contract Clauses as an additional way to comply with the European Commission’s Data Protection Directive. Finally, Google Apps received ISO 27001 certification, ensuring our systems meet one of the most widely, internationally accepted independent security standards.

… anytime, anywhere...
It should be easy to get work done – anytime, on any device, with anyone. With offline editing in Chrome, you can now create and edit Google documents and leave comments even when you don’t have an Internet connection. Any changes you make will be automatically synced when you get back online. When you’re travelling, you can also edit Google documents andspreadsheets using the Drive app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device. Just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

If your business has workers on the go, Google Maps Coordinate combines the power of Google’s mapping technologies with modern smartphones to help you improve communication with employees in the field. In addition, the Google Play Private Channel lets you distribute internal apps to your employees who use Android devices. The new Chromebooks and Chromeboxeswe launched with our partners are secure and easy to manage, which makes them especially great devices for 1-to-1 programs in schools, additional laptops for office workers, or desktop units for multiple users in a call center. (And we’re honored that Inc. Magazine named the Chromebox one of the best business gadgets of 2012.)

...with simple tools...
We’ve also focused on making our products simpler and easier for you to use – both at home and at work. We introduced Google Drive as a single place for you to create, share, collaborate and keep all your work. You can now insert files (up to 10GB) from Drive directly into an email without leaving your Gmail inbox, and you can share work from Drive on Google+.You and up to 14 colleagues can join a Google+ hangout directly from a calendar entry or your email inbox. Once inside a hangout, you can open a Google Doc for everyone to see and work on simultaneously. And if your company uses Chrome along with Google Apps, you can now call or email us for help with Chrome.

With the Google Search Appliance 7.0, you can search for a document on your company’s intranet just as easily as you’d search for a holiday recipe on Google.com. And if your business relies on geographic data—say, to map gas pipelines or help customers locate your store—you can use Google Maps and Earth Enterprise to visualize your data on the Google Maps interface you’re already familiar with.



...supported by partners and Google infrastructure
Whether it’s Apps for Business, Maps Coordinate, or just a Google search, most Google services you use are possible only because of the powerful and energy-efficient infrastructure we’ve built over the years. This year, we worked to bring you more direct access to this infrastructure to help run your businesses and applications in the cloud. Compute Engine lets your business run virtual machines in Google’s data centers and BigQuery helps you quickly analyze big sets of data to gain business insights. Google Cloud Platform also offers moreEuropean datacenter support and lower prices for Cloud Storage.

The new Google Cloud Platform Partner Program ensures that partners have the tools and training to help your business meet its IT needs. And the Google Enterprise Partner Searchmakes it easy for you to find one of our 6,000 Google Apps Resellers with the services you’re looking for – from setup and user training to email migration, management services and support.

* * *

Work doesn’t always need to feel like work. Leaders in every industry—from retail, media and manufacturing to transportation, education and government—are adopting this notion, which we call “going Google.” Going Google means something different for everyone: starting a wine business with your two best friends, trying to build a bear-proof cooler, or keeping citizens safe. But we all have the common goal of bringing our organization into the future so we can work the way we live. 

Quickoffice + Google Apps = better document conversion and an iPad app

Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Director of Product Management, Google Drive 

Since the Quickoffice team joined Google a few months ago, we’ve been working to make it easier for you to work with your legacy Microsoft Office files -- both by converting them to Google documents and by editing them directly in Quickoffice.

Better conversion to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides
You’ve always had the option to convert documents from popular formats into Google Docs, where you can share and work together in real-time. In the past few months, we’veincorporated Quickoffice conversion technology into this process so your Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files look even better when you convert them to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides, respectively.

Left: Old conversion of Excel to Google Sheets

Right: Improved conversion after integrating Quickoffice technology

Using Quickoffice to edit Office files on your iPad
Converting old files to Google Docs, Sheets and Slides is the easiest way to share and work together, but perhaps not everyone you work with has gone Google yet. To complement what you can do with Google documents, we’re also making it easier for you to make quick edits to Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files without conversion. Starting today, theQuickoffice iPad app is available for free to all Apps for Business customers, and iPhone and Android versions are on the way. With the app, you can open and edit any Office files you’ve stored in Google Drive right from your iPad.

Whether you’re converting Office files to Google documents or you just need to make a couple quick edits without converting, it should be easy to get work done whenever you need to, on any device. Stay tuned for more document conversion and mobile editing improvements in 2013. 

Restrict Admin Privileges to Organizational Units

Google Apps super admins now have the ability to designate users as admins for specific organizational units. Users in a domain can be arranged in organizational units to better control the services and features they have access to.

Editions included:
Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

For more information:
http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=182433
http://support.google.com/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=172176

Changes to Google Apps for businesses

Posted by Clay Bavor, Director of Product Management, Google Apps 

Google Apps started with the simple idea that Gmail could help businesses and schools work better together without the hassles of managing software and servers. As we grew from a handful of customers to a few hundred, we expanded to offer a premium business version of Google Apps. Fast forward to today and Google Apps is used by millions of businesses. We’ve also added versions for governments, universities and schools.

When we launched the premium business version we kept our free, basic version as well. Both businesses and individuals signed up for this version, but time has shown that in practice, the experience isn't quite right for either group. Businesses quickly outgrow the basic version and want things like 24/7 customer support and larger inboxes. Similarly, consumers often have to wait to get new features while we make them business-ready.

With this in mind, we’ve decided to make things very straightforward. Starting today for all new customers:

• Individuals wishing to use Google’s web apps like Gmail and Google Drive should create a free personal Google Account, which provides a seamless experience across all of our web services on any device.
• For Businesses, instead of two versions, there will be one. Companies of all sizes will sign up for our premium version, Google Apps for Business, which includes 24/7 phone support for any issue, a 25GB inbox, and a 99.9% uptime guarantee with no scheduled downtime. Pricing is still $50 per user, per year.

Please note this change has no impact on our existing customers, including those using the free version. And as before, Google Apps for Education will be available as a free service for schools and universities. Also, as the first cloud productivity suite with FISMA certification, we’ll continue to offer Google Apps for Government for $50 per user, per year.

With focus we’ll be able to do even more for our business customers. We’re excited about the opportunity to push Google Apps further so our customers can do what matters most to them–whether that’s scooping ice cream, changing the face of healthcare or contributing to lifelong learning.

Shaw Industries floors its employees with Google Apps

Posted by Jim Nielsen, Manager of Enterprise Technology Architecture and Planning for Shaw Industries

Editors note: Our guest blogger this week is Jim Nielsen, Manager of Enterprise Technology Architecture and Planning for Shaw Industries, a 25,000 employee company headquartered in northwest Georgia. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say. 

Shaw Industries was founded in 1946 as a small area rug company, and over the last 66 years we've grown to become the world's largest carpet manufacturer, with 25,000 employees across 200 locations worldwide. During my 15 years at Shaw, I've watched the organization grow, but our collaboration capabilities began to lag behind the needs of our global manufacturing company. We found challenges in scalability and stability in our previous email solution. Support resources were also an issue, as we required a team of three full-time employees just to keep our email up-and-running.
In 2012, we made the move to Google Apps for Business, after proving in pilot programs that it would provide the integrated tools to help our dispersed global teams work together more effectively, would meet the requirements of uptime and ease of provisioning our IT team wanted, and accommodate the security requirements we were looking for.
Prior to moving the entire company to Google Apps, we used Microsoft® Office, which did not meet the collaboration needs of a global manufacturer. We’d end up with 15 different versions of a document attached to who knows how many different emails. As an example, the marketing team wanted a way to easily share files and work together on copy for our website and ads with our agencies. With Google Drive and Google Docs, multiple team members could work on content, and you could actually see it evolve in a very short period of time from a concept to a script for a TV commercial, all in the same shared document.
True collaboration and access from anywhere was something our employees were demanding with more frequency. We knew we needed to extract ourselves from our current email environment. When I did a cost and benefit analysis, it was clear we needed to move to the cloud. We discovered that Microsoft Office 365 would cost about 13 times more for us than Google Apps. In March, with the help of our Google Apps Reseller, Cloud Sherpas, we implemented Google Apps for more than 10,000 of our associates who use email.
It turns out that collaboration doesn’t just benefit the marketing department. We have an elaborate budget process inside IT that we were able to move to Google Sheets. Now our master spreadsheet can be instantly updated in real time, shaving about two months, or 50 percent of time spent, off the budgeting process. We’ve also started to use Hangouts for a lot of our meetings. In fact, we’ve started holding our staff meetings via hangout, even though the team is only 20 minutes apart. Hangouts have allowed us to be more focused, trimming the hour long meeting to 30 minutes.
One responsibility in my job is to find ways to help our teams be more productive. That can be challenging in a manufacturing company where the majority of users aren’t necessarily tech savvy, but with Google Apps that doesn’t matter because the products are intuitive. They are now able to do things themselves, and we have wanted to allow them to be self-sufficient for a long time. After just a few months of using Google Apps, I’m inspired by the way our teams are working together and finding faster, easier ways to work.

Introducing online sign-up for Google Maps Coordinate

Posted by Dan Chu, Senior Product Manager, Google Maps for Business 

Google Maps Coordinate makes it easy to manage mobile teams more efficiently. To help businesses get started with Maps Coordinate, we’re introducing an online store where businesses can enroll in a 30 day trial or contact sales for more information.

Maps Coordinate combines the power of Google’s mapping technologies with modern smartphones to help organizations improve communication with employees in the field. Employees can download the mobile app on their phone to share real-time location data and any information they need to record about a particular job. Meanwhile, dispatchers in a central office can use the web app to see the locations of the employees in the field, create new jobs at specific locations, and assign new jobs to nearby individuals or teams.

Visit our online store to start using Maps Coordinate today.

Europe’s oldest luxury hotel group moves to the cloud

Posted by Jeremy Ward, Senior Vice President for IT, Kempinski Hotels 

Editors note: Today we welcome guest blogger Jeremy Ward, Senior President for IT at Kempinski Hotels. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say. 

At Kempinksi Hotels, we believe we are personally responsible for creating rich and meaningful experiences for each of our guests. As Europe’s oldest luxury hotel group, it’s important to us that we provide perfection for our guests, whether that’s planning their wedding or just making sure they’re comfortable in a city they’re visiting for the first time.

As we began planning our five year strategy in 2010, we recognized the need to free operational resources from IT and find ways to work together across 70 hotels in 30 countries to continue providing best-in-class guest experiences. We found that moving to the cloud would allow us to reduce the overall cost of ownership and IT administration at each individual hotel so they could focus on driving efficiencies out of applications instead of just maintaining them. Quickly moving all of our properties to the cloud became a key part of our broader business strategy.

After considering cloud email platforms from Microsoft and Lotus, we found Google Apps to be the most mature solution and would allow us to collaborate easily across hotels and offices around the world. With the help of Google Apps Reseller, Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS), we transferred existing messages, appointments and contacts from GroupWise to Google Apps using their CloudMigrator multi-platform migration suite.

Now that we’ve fully migrated our 5,000 employees, we feel like we have an email platform that allows us to easily scale our business across each location, adding and removing users in a matter of minutes. We’re excited about being on a platform that continues to innovate and release features like instant translation in Gmail, Google+ Hangouts in Gmail, and document storage and collaboration using Google Drive. Moving to Google Apps was key to reducing the overall cost of ownership and cost of administration to the hotels, but we believe that the true benefits will come from the creative ways our employees use these tools to work together and provide an even better experience for our guests in the coming years.

Edit spreadsheets on the go with the Drive mobile app

Posted by Shrikant Shanbhag, Software Engineer

(Cross-posted on the Drive Blog.)

With the holidays fast approaching, life speeds up and work can’t always wait.

While on the move, you can now edit Google Sheets on your mobile device, just like you can with Google Docs. From the Drive app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device, you can create a new spreadsheet or edit an existing one. You can switch fonts, resize columns, sort data, and more. And just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

Beyond spreadsheets, you may notice a few other tweaks to the Drive app, including better text formatting when you copy and paste in a Google document. And if you’re using an Android device, you can now edit text within tables in documents and add a shortcut on the homescreen of your device to any specific file in Drive.

Whether it’s 2013 budget planning or your company’s holiday gift list, the Drive app on your mobile device makes it easy to get things done wherever you are.

Get the Google Drive app today from the Apple App Store and Google Play.

Gmail and Drive - a new way to send files

Posted by Phil Sharp, Product Manager, Gmail 

(Cross-posted from the Gmail blog.)

Since Google Drive launched in April, millions of people have started using Drive to keep, create and share files. Starting today, it’s even easier to share with others: you can insert files from Drive directly into an email without leaving your Gmail.

Have you ever tried to attach a file to an email only to find out it's too large to send? Now with Drive, you can insert files up to 10GB -- 400 times larger than what you can send as a traditional attachment. Also, because you’re sending a file stored in the cloud, all your recipients will have access to the same, most-up-to-date version.

Like a smart assistant, Gmail will also double-check that your recipients all have access to any files you’re sending. This works like Gmail’s forgotten attachment detector: whenever you send a file from Drive that isn’t shared with everyone, you’ll be prompted with the option to change the file’s sharing settings without leaving your email. It’ll even work with Drive links pasted directly into emails.


So whether it’s photos from your recent camping trip, video footage from your brother’s wedding, or a presentation to your boss, all your stuff is easy to find and easy to share with Drive and Gmail. To get started, just click on the Drive icon while you're composing a message. Note that this feature is rolling out over the next few days and is only available with Gmail's new compose experience, so you'll need to opt-in if you haven't already.

Getting Indonesian universities connected

Posted by Raden Arief Setiawan, Brawijaya University 

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Raden Arief Setiawan, Head of Information and Technology Assessment and Development at Brawijaya University in Indonesia.

The world has been paying more attention to Indonesia these days to see how the world's fourth most populous nation moves into the digital century. While we're excited about our progress so far, there is still much work to do. Being a member of the G20, Indonesia has lots to offer the global economy in terms of both growing markets and a young workforce. This puts particular pressure on national universities to better prepare the next generation of leaders to enter the competitive worlds of science and business.

Despite the advances of information technology, many state universities face challenges in getting the latest systems in place. Despite having an internal email system for all its faculty and students, Brawijaya University faced numerous challenges of maintaining the infrastructure. The email system, along with server hardware, consumed a significant portion of the IT budget, and managing the email system alone took hundreds of man-hours.

Students and faculty members had to be resourceful, at times sharing single email accounts to transfer files and download the latest class notes. This was far from an ideal solution, but a solution nevertheless, considering the situation.

Now, with the help of the free and cloud-based Google Apps for Education system, 45,000 Brawijaya students and teachers have access to a whole new way of doing things: an updated, secure email system bearing the proud institution’s name; collaboration tools in the form of Google Docs and Groups, as well as access to the world wide web from various access points around the campus. For the administrators, Google Apps for Education was an easy choice due to the system’s openness, ease of access, and the way it can be connected to existing systems without having to buy new licenses and hardware.

We are proud to join other educational institutions around the world by fully embracing technology to change the way our university community will communicate, collaborate and learn. This will help develop a culture that simulates the ever-competitive global working environment, providing the nation’s best minds for the future.

Google Enterprise Blog: Some new ways to get things done in Google Drive

Posted by Josh Hudgins, Product Manager, Google Drive 

In case you haven’t noticed them already, here are a handful of small updates that will make it easier to find, organize, and view files on Drive.

• Search by person: Can't remember the name of a file but know who shared it with you? Now Drive search auto-completes people’s names, making it easier to find the stuff you’re looking for.

• View Google Earth map files: You can now open, preview, and interact with Google Earth files (.kml and .kmz) right inside Google Drive on the web.
• Drag and drop folders in Chrome: If you’re using Chrome, you can drag and drop entire folders from your desktop to Drive on the web (at drive.google.com).
• Search includes items in your trash: Sometimes files you are looking for accidentally end up in your trash, so now search results include files there too.
• Create new folders while organizing files: Now when you select files in your Drive list, in addition to adding them to an existing folder, you can add directly to a new folder.

We’ve also added some tools to make it easier for Google Apps administrators to manage Drive for their domain.

• Remotely install Drive on Windows computers: Remotely install Drive on many Windows machines at once using the Drive .MSI Installer for Windows.
• License Manager API: If you have hundreds or thousands of people using Google Drive at your domain, use this API to streamline and automate your storage management tasks.
• Bulk upload and assign storage: Add all users at once by uploading one CSV file for easily scalable license assignment.

• Search for users: Assign or change storage for a particular user by searching for their name.

Hudbay Minerals moves its global team to Google Apps

Posted by Joe AbiDaoud, CIO of Hudbay Minerals 

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Joe AbiDaoud, CIO of Hudbay Minerals, a publicly traded Canadian mining company headquartered in Toronto. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Since 1927, Hudbay Minerals has focused on discovering and producing base and precious metals. From exploration projects in North and South America and our current operations in Canada, our 2,000 employees depend on technology to work together and make sure our efforts are coordinated across regions. To do this, we really needed a platform that allowed us to easily collaborate, work remotely using our mobile devices, and communicate across teams in different regions and different languages.We had been using Microsoft® Office for years, with several Microsoft® Exchange servers across the company, but it became increasingly difficult for our IT team to stay up and running with the uptick in support calls due to a dated system. After exploring various options at different price points, we knew we wanted to move to a cloud-based solution to work more efficiently and provide a scalable and reliable solution.
We invited Google reseller, Sheepdog, to conduct a two-day Google Apps for Business workshop for a small group of employees from various levels and departments within the company. During the workshop, employees evaluated Google Apps against our “success criteria,” which included ease of use, efficiency, functionality, speed and cost. We quickly realized that Google Apps was a good fit for our geographically dispersed company and in July we started moving more than 1,000 employees to Google Apps.
Our IT support calls for email plummeted overnight, demonstrating just how easy it is to use Google Apps. For a global company, being able to instantly translate messages in Gmail and use Google+ Hangouts to meet “in person” made the language and geographical barriers easier to overcome. We’ve also estimated that by going Google we will reduce our costs over the long term when compared to the cost of upgrading and maintaining our old infrastructure. As a public company, we’re thrilled with the savings and new ways of working that we discovered by moving to the cloud.

Quality Distribution Inc. saves money and increases productivity by going Google

Posted by Cliff Dixon, Vice President of Information Technology, Quality Distribution Inc. 

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Cliff Dixon, Vice President of Information Technology, Quality Distribution Inc. (NASDAQ: QLTY), North America’s largest bulk transportation company headquartered in Tampa, Florida. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Quality Distribution, Inc. (QDI) provides safe, efficient and responsible bulk transportation services across the country. What started as a small trucking operation hauling lime and milk in 1913 has grown to more than 125 small offices, many franchises, and 3,000 truck drivers across North America. With multiple offices and employees scattered throughout the United States, having a reliable technology solution is imperative to ensure that we’re providing the best service to our clients.

For years we used traditional PCs company-wide in a Microsoft Exchange environment, which did not foster easy collaboration, communication or access to applications – and employees felt the pain. In 2011, after a pilot session with the IT department, QDI rolled out Google Apps company-wide with the help of Cloud Sherpas. In just a few months, I knew going Google was the right move for QDI. It allowed employees to connect to all of our locations and all of our drivers from anywhere without intensive IT support, and Google Apps was less than half the cost of Microsoft Exchange.

Around the time we deployed Google Apps, our computers started to slow down and break due to age. We refurbished older computers, but their value was minimal since they couldn’t run newer versions of the Windows operating system. In 2010, we started looking into purchasing new devices, including Linux and Chrome OS devices. Ultimately, we decided to move forward with Google Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, deploying 500 devices across 125 locations in the last year.

With Chrome devices, we can spend less time worrying about hardware, and software security patches, and more time focused on optimizing the user experience of our systems. Not only are the devices easy to manage from an IT perspective, but we also expect to save $500,000 on hardware alone over the next five years. As part of our move to Chromebooks, we also web-enabled some of our existing Windows-based apps using HTML5-based virtualization software from Ericom, making them easier to maintain.

Going Google has helped QDI improve collaboration, save money and eliminate IT headaches. Most importantly, our employees are more productive with easy-to-use technology. We’re looking forward to continued growth and providing the best service to our clients with help from Google.

Insphere Insurance Solutions comes together with Google Apps

Posted by Steve Jensen, VP of Information Technology at Insphere Insurance Solutions, Inc. 

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Steve Jensen, Vice President of Information Technology at Insphere Insurance Solutions, Inc., one of the fastest growing insurance distribution companies in the U.S. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say. 

Insphere Insurance Solutions, Inc. is a distribution company that specializes in meeting the insurance needs of small businesses and middle-income individuals and families. Our field sales force consists of approximately 3,000 independent agents nationwide who offer life, health, long-term care and retirement insurance.

In 2009, we decided we needed to move all of our agents, in more than 80 locations, off of various email systems, including Microsoft® Exchange, onto one platform. This would keep operational costs down and allow our agents and support teams to communicate more effectively. Since our agents rarely come into an office, access from any device was critical.

Today, nearly four years after our initial implementation, Google Apps has dramatically increased productivity and transformed our business. Now, our agents are using Google Docs to collaborate with each other on projects and can meet virtually anywhere using Google+ Hangouts to share ideas and best practices from their experience. With no more servers or software licenses, we reduced our projected costs from other solutions by almost 70 percent. That kind of savings delivers true value to our bottom line.

As a company, we have been able to leverage Google APIs to help us be efficient. When an agent joins or leaves the team, our provisioning system manages all account items with our Google integration.

In addition to the add/change user administration, we utilize Google Groups to constantly maintain distribution lists for email and control file security related to GoogleDrive/Docs. This automated maintenance promotes increased use of Docs collaborative capabilities. An office manager never has to worry about sharing docs or managing a distribution list again.

After this successful integration, we integrated our CRM platform with the Google calendar. All of our agent appointments are pushed to Google Calendar and then to their mobile phone automatically. Any update on the phone is then reversed and posted back to Google and CRM. We were able to leverage the Google platform and its APIs to deliver for the business without incremental licensing costs.

When it comes to recruiting and sustaining our growth, Google Apps has been instrumental in helping us hire new agents quickly while ensuring that they are equipped with the information they need to be successful. With all their documents, calendars and email accessible on the go, our agents are always connected to each other and clients, no matter where they are. This platform has really helped our teams stay connected and collaborate in ways they hadn’t imagined.

IT is no longer a barrier and no one has to wait to meet with someone from the IT department to get going with Google Apps. In fact, I personally haven’t had to pick up the phone once to call an email administrator. It has been truly amazing to see the natural adoption of the product by our field agents.

Universitas Surabaya Gone Google

One of the first 10 Google Apps for Enterprise partners worldwide, SADA Systems Asia has developed a proven track record in successful implementations of Google Apps solutions for the higher education market. SADA works closely its clients to create custom, leading edge solutions that strategically meet their business and institutional objectives.

Universitas Surabaya is often abbreviated as UBAYA, founded on March 11, 1968. Currently, UBAYA already has 7 faculties with 20 study programs. The process of education itself implemented in three campuses: teaching and learning activities conducted mainly at Tenggilis Campus and Ngagel Campus, and Trawas Campus - which is an Outdoor Campus located in Trawas, approximately 60 kms from Surabaya.

Challenges

Ubaya provided mailbox with a very limited quota to every staff and student but year after year it had been challenging because of the high cost of maintaining and upgrading infrastructure every year. It also required resources to maintain, update and keep the mail server from outside attack.

Solution

SADA works with Ubaya to ensure the migration process went well and smooth. SADA provides assistance creating Single Sign-On (SSO) so that the system can be integrated with previous Ubaya systems, SADA also provide training to trainers/early users so that they can use Google Apps in Optimal, SADA also help provide change management so that the process of change from the old mail server to Google Apps known and used optimally by the entire academic community Ubaya.

Result

Google Apps is being used in the university to improve the communication and collaboration between students and teachers. Additionally, having Single Sign On application that is integrated with existing portal of the Universitas Surabaya it makes it easier for users to access their mails, documents, and calendars.

“The process of implementation of Google Apps for EDU at the Universitas Surabaya runs smooth and as expected. Gooaya development, branding of Google Apps for EDU at the Universitas Surabaya, in such way runs greatly with help from SADA Systems Asia. SADA also has provided various training and development collaborations ranging from the deployment, implementation, communication plan, up to Go Live. Professionalism of SADA has contributed a lot so that there is no significant obstacles during the various stages.” Said Stephanus Eko Wahyudi, Head of IT department.

Introducing the new compose in Gmail

Posted by Phil Sharp, Product Manager 

(Cross-posted on the Gmail Blog.)

We're always trying to make Gmail faster and easier to use, so today we're introducing a completely redesigned compose and reply experience that does just that.

Faster
How many times have you been writing an email and had to reference something in another message? Saving a draft, opening the old email, and then reopening your draft wastes valuable minutes. The new compose pops up in a window, just like chats (only larger).

This makes it easy to reference any other emails without ever having to close your draft. You can even do a search or keep an eye on new mail as it comes in. And because the compose window works the same way as chats, you can write multiple messages at once and minimize a message to finish it later.

Easier to use
The new compose is designed to let you focus on what's important: your message. The controls are still there when you need them but get out of the way when you don’t. We’ve even added some new features like the ability to easily insert inline images and have more to come.

And, when you add recipients to your message, you'll see profile pictures of your contacts in autocomplete helping you find the right person faster. You can also drag and drop the new address chips between to:, cc: and bcc:. When you’re done adding recipients, the address area collapses automatically to get out of your way.


You’ll also see these same changes when you respond to a message. The reply experience has been designed to fit better inline as part of your conversation -- replies take up much less vertical height, intelligently expand to fit your content, and always keep the recipients and other controls in view no matter how long your message gets.

We're rolling out a preview of the new compose and reply today. After we've added some finishing touches over the coming months, we’ll enable it for everyone.

Helping SMBs save money with the cloud

Diposkan oleh Rich Rao, Direktur Penjualan dan Operasi, Google Enterprise

Bekerja dengan Google dan Analisis Group, MIT penelitian ilmuwan Andrew McAfee baru-baru ini melakukan penelitian untuk memahami biaya komparatif bisnis pindah ke awan versus tersisa dengan tradisional on-premise sistem TI. Dalam model biaya komparatif, McAfee menemukan bahwa kecil hingga menengah yang khas-bisnis (SMB) secara signifikan akan mengurangi biaya IT-nya dengan melakukan jauh dengan on-premise teknologi dan pindah ke awan.

                             

Sebagai contoh, sebuah bisnis dengan 16-100 komputer dapat berharap untuk menyimpan 37% dengan pindah ke awan - bahkan jika tidak ada pengurangan tenaga kerja IT. Dengan tabungan dicapai dengan pindah ke awan, bisnis ini dapat berinvestasi di daerah-daerah yang membantu memperluas atau memperkuat bisnis mereka, apakah itu membuka cabang baru, memulai lini produk baru, atau mempekerjakan lebih banyak orang.

Bill Hipsher, Direktur Pengembangan Bisnis di USstoragesearch.com menegaskan, "Selama periode satu tahun, Google Apps biaya seperempat dari apa yang kami menghabiskan pada pada premis-IT kami sebelum pindah ke awan - dan lebih dari seumur hidup bisnis kami, turun ke hanya sepersepuluh satu-dari biaya Penghematan hardware, software dan waktu membantu kami memperluas call center kami, yang menyebabkan penciptaan lebih dari 30 pekerjaan baru tahun ini.. "

Dalam studinya, McAfee juga mencatat bahwa penggunaan teknologi UKM 'merupakan indikator yang kuat untuk masa depan TI. Karena UKM lebih fleksibel dalam pengambilan keputusan mereka dan tidak terhambat oleh biaya warisan, mereka dapat memilih sistem IT yang paling sesuai dengan bisnis mereka. Jadi, pindah ke awan membebaskan uang untuk UKM untuk mendorong bisnis dan pertumbuhan lapangan kerja, dan dapat menjadi preseden untuk bagaimana perusahaan besar mengadopsi teknologi cloud.

Di Google, kami bangga untuk bekerja dengan UKM di seluruh negeri untuk membantu mereka menghemat uang dan pindah ke awan. Kunjungi website kami untuk mempelajari lebih lanjut tentang pindah bisnis Anda ke Google Apps dan mengeksplorasi model biaya komparatif McAfee dalam Lembar Google untuk menyesuaikan dan menyesuaikan model bisnis Anda.

Satu klik untuk Docs, Lembar, dan Slide

Selasa, Oktober 23, 2012

Diposkan oleh Jonathan Rochelle, Direktur Manajemen Produk

(Cross-diposting dari Blog Google Drive.)

Google Drive adalah tempat di mana Anda dapat membuat, berbagi, berkolaborasi dan menyimpan semua barang-barang Anda. Tentu saja, ada saat-saat Anda ingin memulai sebuah dokumen baru segera-katakanlah, mencatat di kelas atau menyiapkan presentasi menit-menit terakhir untuk atasan Anda.

Untuk membuatnya lebih mudah bagi Anda untuk membuat barang-barang dengan cepat, Dokumen, Spreadsheet, dan Presentasi-sekarang disebut Docs, Lembar, dan Slides-sekarang tersedia sebagai aplikasi di Chrome Web Store. Setelah diinstal, cara pintas ke aplikasi ini akan muncul ketika Anda membuka tab baru di Chrome.



Jika Anda menggunakan Chromebook, Anda akan melihat Docs, Lembar, dan Slides dalam daftar aplikasi Anda secara default mengikuti update berikutnya untuk Chrome OS dalam beberapa minggu.

Google’s data centers: an inside look

Rabu, 17 Oktober, 2012

Diposkan oleh Urs Hölzle, Wakil Presiden Senior, Prasarana Teknis

(Cross-diposting dari Blog Google Resmi.)

Sangat sedikit orang yang telah melangkah masuk pusat data Google, dan untuk alasan yang baik: prioritas pertama kami adalah privasi dan keamanan data Anda, dan kami pergi ke berusaha keras untuk melindunginya, menjaga situs kami di bawah penjagaan dekat. Sementara kita telah berbagi banyak desain dan praktik terbaik, dan kami telah menerbitkan efisiensi data kami sejak 2008, hanya satu set kecil karyawan memiliki akses ke lantai server itu sendiri.

Hari ini, untuk pertama kalinya, Anda dapat melihat ke dalam pusat data kami dan membayar mereka kunjungan virtual. Di mana kehidupan Internet, situs baru kami menampilkan foto-foto indah oleh Connie Zhou, Anda akan mendapatkan tampilan tidak pernah dilihat sebelumnya pada teknologi, orang-orang dan tempat-tempat yang membuat Google berjalan.

Selain itu, kini Anda dapat menjelajahi kami Lenoir, NC pusat data pada kecepatan Anda sendiri di Street View. Berjalan di pintu depan, kepala menaiki tangga, belok kanan di meja ping-pong dan kepala lorong ke lantai data center. Atau berjalan-jalan di sekitar luar fasilitas untuk melihat hemat energi infrastruktur pendinginan kami. Anda juga dapat menonton tur video untuk mempelajari lebih lanjut tentang apa yang Anda lihat di Street View dan melihat beberapa peralatan kami dalam tindakan.

Akhirnya, kami mengundang penulis dan reporter WIRED Steven Levy untuk berbicara dengan arsitek infrastruktur kami dan mendapatkan tampilan belum pernah terjadi sebelumnya pada inner nya. Cerita barunya adalah eksplorasi sejarah dan evolusi infrastruktur kami, dengan laporan pertama kali-pernah dari lantai pusat data Google.

Empat belas tahun yang lalu, kembali ketika Google adalah sebuah proyek penelitian mahasiswa, Larry dan Sergey didukung pencari baru mereka mesin menggunakan beberapa murah, off-the-rak server ditumpuk dengan cara yang kreatif. Kami telah tumbuh sedikit sejak saat itu, dan kami berharap Anda menikmati ini sekilas pada apa yang kita telah membangun. Dalam beberapa hari mendatang kami akan berbagi serangkaian posting di Blog Hijau Google yang menjelajahi beberapa foto-foto secara lebih rinci, sehingga menantikan untuk lebih!

Universitas Kristen Petra Gone Google

One of the first 10 Google Apps for Enterprise partners worldwide and initial contributor to the Google Apps Open Source provisioning tool kit, SADA Systems Asia has developed a proven track record in successful implementations of Google Apps solutions for the higher education market. SADA works closely its clients to create custom, leading edge solutions that strategically meet their business and institutional objectives.

Located in Surabaya, Indonesia, Petra Christian University has distinguished itself for over 50 years. Founded in 1961 with English Faculty dan one year latter Civil Engineering Faculty. Today over 9,000 students in 20 academic programs and two graduate departments attend Petra.

Challenges

When the project with Petra Christian University started, SADA worked closely with the client to develop a set of requirements. At the beginning, the client had not yet configured a Google Apps Education Edition account, so the project requirement was to assist with the configuration of their account and setting up Google Apps on their domain. In the discovery process for the project SADA and the client worked together to determine the following:

• Provisioning student account from linux user list to Google Apps.
• Need of simple system to manage group since it will contain large amount of user.
• Require to build change management plan to make a smooth transition and increase usage of Google Apps.
• On premise mail server was costly, unsecure and unstable, With every power outage the on premise mail servers crashed and needed tremendous maintenance.

Solution

After developing a clear set of requirements, SADA worked with the client to ensure the smooth transition and things that they will need in future is easy to achive.

• Provisioning account from linux system using custom sync. tool developed by SADA.
• SADA Groups Management Tool (GMT) developed to manage large groups and members by doing batch upload.
• SADA configured Google Apps as multi domain as existing mail system and plan of Google Apps deployment in first phase for part of Petra civitas akademic
• To ensure after transition to Google Apps is smooth and widely used by students, change management scenario made based on Google and SADA best practice.

Result

With SADA's assistance and the implementation of best-of-breed utilities for the deployment of Google Apps, Petra was able to smoothly and effectively implement Google Apps for their students and faculty. This implementation of Google Apps will allow Petra Christian University move on to next phase for their other member.

SADA is committed to 100% satisfaction delivery to our Google Apps projects. “A very special thanks to SADA Systems Asia for the help of communication planning, deploying, migration and change management, especially their commitment in meeting our needs from start to finish.” said Pak Justin as the head of IT.

Google Apps is currently used in daily activities in class and greatly facilitate lecturers and students in teaching and learning activities, as well as to general activities on campus.
See more on Petra Mail

Google Apps, Vault Dan Komponen Platform Cloud Lengkapi Audit SSAE 16

Keamanan sangat penting untuk pengguna kami dan kami telah menginvestasikan jutaan dolar untuk membantu menjaga mereka online yang aman. Untuk Apps dan pelanggan Cloud Platform, kami menyediakan transparansi dan visibilitas bagi mereka perlindungan melalui kami Whitepaper Keamanan Google Apps dan data center kami tur video. 

Sementara deskripsi kita tentang apa yang kita lakukan sangat berharga bagi pelanggan, kami juga berkomitmen untuk melakukan penilaian pihak independen 3 keamanan dan praktik perlindungan data. Membangun audit 16 SSAE kami selesai tahun lalu dan ISO 27001 untuk

Lab Riset Nuklir Idaho Beralih Ke Google Apps

Terletak di tenggara Idaho pada hampir 900 mil persegi padang pasir, Idaho National Laboratory adalah laboratorium utama untuk penelitian nuklir untuk Departemen Energi AS (DoE). Karyawan di INL bekerja pada proyek-proyek yang beragam yang mencakup membuat baterai yang digunakan pada misi luar angkasa Amerika Serikat, mengembangkan teknologi baru untuk reaktor nuklir, melindungi infrastruktur kritis dan mengoperasikan superkomputer ke-64 tercepat di dunia.

Sistem integrator Unisys baru saja menyelesaikan migrasi dari hampir 5.000 karyawan INL ke Google Apps for Government dari Lotus Notes.

Edit Charts di Google Spreadsheets Hanya Dengan Klik!

Grafik menceritakan kisah data kami, jadi kami sering menghabiskan banyak waktu untuk mendapatkan format yang tepat. Itulah sebabnya kami ingin membuat proses yang lebih cepat dan lebih mudah di Google spreadsheet. Alih-alih membuka dialog Editor grafik untuk membuat perubahan format, kini Anda dapat klik langsung pada bagian grafik yang ingin Anda modifikasi untuk mengubah hal-hal seperti warna, legenda, dan label.

Google Apps Pasangan Sempurna Untuk Design Within Reach

Di Design Within Reach, kami membuat desain modern otentik mudah diakses. Rob Forbes mendirikan perusahaannya di tahun 1999 ketika ia mencoba untuk memberikan desain apartemen dengan, klasik bersih & sederhana. Ia mulai diakui atas kinerjanya ketika tinggal di London, tetapi menemukan bahwa banyak desainer favoritnya tidak dapat diakses di Amerika Serikat.  Design Within Reach cepat lepas landas dan saat ini memiliki 44 lokasi ritel di seluruh AS dan Kanada. 

Pada tahun 2009, pasangan saya dan COO, John McPhee, dan saya memutuskan untuk memindahkan kantor perusahaan dari California ke Connecticut, itu memberi kami kesempatan untuk mengevaluasi kembali operasi internal kami. Platform teknologi sebelumnya kami mengharuskan kami untuk mempertahankan beberapa server, dan memindahkan mereka di seluruh negeri dan pengaturan mereka lagi akan menjadi mahal. Plus, solusi on-premise tidak pernah akan memberikan kemudahan kolaborasi di seluruh lokasi toko kami dan kantor pusat yang sangat penting bagi keberhasilan kami. kami memutuskan langkah ini adalah kesempatan sempurna untuk mengimplementasikan Google Apps.

Sebelum Google Apps, itu tidak mudah untuk berbagi bahan penting seperti jadwal promosi toko, tata letak toko, atau update PR dengan cepat dan

Pengalaman Baru Dalam Pembelajaran di Kampus

Josh mengingat masa-masa di kampus, ketika bekerja pada sebuah proyek kelompok berarti trekking melalui salju (menanjak kedua-duanya, tentu saja) untuk bertemu dengan timnya di perpustakaan, diikuti oleh putaran tak berujung, maju dan mundur serta revisi (pena merah, tidak diragukan lagi). Dan ketika masa lalu, yang ia maksudkan adalah tahun lalu. Josh kini sebagai senior di Princeton University kembali ke kampus musim gugur ini, ia dan teman-teman sekelasnya akan mendapatkan pengalaman baru dengan Google Apps for Education.

Princeton hanyalah salah satu dari banyak perguruan tinggi dan universitas yang sekarang menggunakan Google Apps. Bahkan, tujuh dari delapan universitas Ivy League dan 72 dari 100 universitas ternama AS tahun ini (sebagaimana ditentukan pada tahun 2013 US News and World Report peringkat) sudah Going Google.

Google Drive: Update Untuk iOS dan Android

Setiap hari, semakin banyak orang yang memilih untuk hidup secara online dan mendapatkan sesuatu dilakukan di awan. Membantu untuk membuat pengalaman ini sebagai mulus mungkin, Google Drive adalah salah satu tempat di mana Anda dapat membuat, berbagi, dan menyimpan semua barang-barang Anda. Drive tersedia di web, serta Mac, Windows dan Android dan iOS. 


Update untuk iOS
Mulai hari ini, jika Anda menggunakan aplikasi Drive pada perangkat iOS Anda, Anda juga dapat mengedit dokumen Google, seperti halnya Anda bisa dengan aplikasi Android. Dari iPhone atau iPad, Anda dapat membuat dokumen baru, mengedit yang sudah ada atau format teks. Dan seperti pada komputer Anda, Anda akan dapat melihat yang orang lain suntingan langsung karena mereka dibuat.

Anda juga akan melihat perbaikan baru lainnya ke aplikasi iOS Hard. Misalnya, Anda sekarang dapat melihat presentasi Google pada iPhone atau iPad, termasuk catatan pembicara, modus layar penuh dan kemampuan untuk menggesek antara slide. Anda juga dapat membuat folder baru, memindahkan file ke dalam folder dan upload data (seperti foto dan video) dari perangkat Anda secara langsung di app Drive.