Google Data » Kevin Gough

Playworks Transforms more than Recess with Chromebooks and Apps

Kevin Gough — Wed, 24 Oct 2012 17:31:00 +0000

Posted by Richard Ng, IT director, Playworks

Editors note: Today’s guest blogger is Richard Ng, IT director at Playworks, a nonprofit organization dedicated to improving children’s health and well-being through increased physical activity and play. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

For more than 16 years, Playworks has been working with elementary schools in urban communities to help increase students’ physical activity during recess and throughout the day. We are the only organization in the country to send trained adult program coordinators into low-income schools, where they turn recess into a fun, positive experience that helps kids and teachers get the most out of their school day.

Headquartered in Oakland, California, Playworks has coaches and staff deployed at 380 schools, reaching 170,000 students in 23 cities across the country every day. In addition, our training staff serves another 400 schools each year all around the country. As the director of IT, my job is to make sure that every one of our staff has access to the resources they need to be successful at their schools. For our program staff, who visit 2-3 different schools every week the ability to get to their documents, and share and collaborate with each other is vital. Playworks relies on flexibility, mobility and access to information anytime, anywhere – Google is helping us achieve that.

In 2011, I attended Google I/O, where I had my first encounter with the Chromebook. I knew immediately that Chromebooks and Google Apps could be the answer our tech needs. We deployed a small, successful pilot program in early 2011, and today we have nearly 80+ Chromebook devices in use in the field, with more planned next year. With a simple two-page instruction document that we created internally, our team could work, share and collaborate from any of our 23 cities virtually overnight. Because Chromebooks don’t require manual software updates or an IT support staff to troubleshoot, my team can focus less on maintenance and more on strategic IT projects, and ultimately, the kids.

As a non-profit organization, cost is a major factor in every technology decision. The value that Google Apps and Chromebooks have delivered is unprecedented. Playworks has been able to save tens of thousands of dollars since we implemented Google Apps and deployed the Chromebooks. Based on estimates of what we previously spent on software and maintenance versus what we are spending now, I estimate we will save $50,000 - $70,000 per year. That translates to tremendous savings that can be redirected to improving our programs for kids.

At the end of the day, while we are working to improve the health and well-being of children by increasing opportunities for physical activity and safe, meaningful play, Google is helping our team access the technology they need to transform recess in the communities that need it the most.

The new Chromebook, for every student

Kevin Gough — Thu, 18 Oct 2012 17:04:00 +0000

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Group Product Manager, Chrome for Education & Business

Today on the Chrome blog we announced the new Samsung Chromebook for $249, an even more affordable way to bring the the web’s vast educational resources and apps to your students.

At only 2.5 pounds and 0.8 inches thick, the new Chromebook zips along, booting in under 10 seconds and playing high resolution video beautifully. It automatically receives the latest security updates from Google and doesn’t require any manual IT set-up, so additional devices won’t mean skyrocketing support costs. A recent IDC sponsored white paper showed that Chromebooks for Education require 69 percent less labor to install and 92 percent less labor to support, delivering big cost savings by reducing the need to hire additional IT staff.

Our goal is to make computers more accessible to everyone and we hope that the new Chromebook makes it even easier for you to bring the power of the web to your classroom.

Editors note: Join us for a Hangout On Air on Tuesday, October 23 at 11:00 am PDT/ 2:00 pm EDT/ 7:00 pm BST off of the Google in Education Google+ page. We’ll do a quick review of the details of the new device, compare it to other models, and take your live questions.

Enhanced Chrome browser support for Google Apps customers

Kevin Gough — Tue, 02 Oct 2012 21:04:00 +0000

Posted by Fred Beckebanze, Manager, Google Apps Technical Solutions Engineers

Business is moving to the web. The web allows organizations of all sizes to get stuff done from anywhere, and work better together. The Chrome browser helps businesses get onto the web securely and quickly – and today, we’re adding phone and email support for Chrome for Google Apps customers.

Moving forward, Google Apps for Business, Education and Government customers may contact Google via phone or email to receive support on Chrome installation, functionality, security, browser policy settings and Google Apps interoperability for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.

With Chrome you can securely sync your bookmarks, apps, settings and open tabs across devices – useful for the 98% of us who move between screens throughout our day. Google Apps also work great with Chrome, as features like offline document editing, desktop notifications and homescreen apps are currently only available in Chrome.

If your organization uses a legacy app that isn’t compatible with Chrome, we suggest adopting a dual-browser strategy. The costs of using an old browser can range from reduced speed and feature gaps to exposure to critical security holes – far greater than the costs of supporting a second browser.

Editor’s note: For Apps organizations running Windows, download the Microsoft Installer version of Chrome and centrally configure and deploy it to your employees. For organizations that support multiple operating systems, users or IT can download the Chrome client directly.

Join us for a Google+ Hangout on Air on Wednesday, October 3 at 11am PDT (2pm EDT) to review new Chrome features and deployment practices for Google Apps customers. Go to the Google+ Your Business page at the start time and you’ll be tuned in.

Trying something new: Rent a Chromebook for $30 per month

Kevin Gough — Wed, 05 Sep 2012 18:07:00 +0000

Posted by Divya Agarwalla, Product Manager, Chrome for Business

Since launch, our vision for Chromebooks has been to bring the simplicity, flexibility and affordability of cloud computing to the personal computer. Auto-updates, the Chrome management console, and browser sync have brought us closer. Today, we’re bringing the cloud model to the hardware itself by trialing a Chromebook rental program, in conjunction with financing partner CIT.

Imagine you’re setting up shop for a local political campaign and will have an influx of new, temporary workers. You can rent a Chromebook for each worker for the next few months, and return them when the campaign is over. Chromebooks meet the needs of most workers, making this rental program a great option for companies with seasonal workers, larger organizations who want to pilot Chromebooks, fast-growing startups and any company looking to preserve cash.

Organizations in the US can rent a new Chromebook starting at $30 per month or rent a Chromebox starting at $25 per month. Rentals are month-to-month, and there’s no long-term commitment. The rental includes Chrome hardware with 3-year limited warranty, the web-based Chrome management console to centrally set-up and control users, devices and apps, and 24/7 support. And the monthly payments actually decrease the longer you keep the device.

If you’re a Google Apps business customer, today we’re also making it possible for you to purchase up to 10 Chromebooks – including web-based user, device and app management – online from Google. You can manage your fleet of Chromebooks right from the Apps control panel, giving you a unified view across your organization and enabling you to get users up and running quickly.

We’re seeing some great uses for Chromebooks in business and government:

As part of its HTML5 web app strategy, transportation firm QDI is giving Chromebooks to operational managers in truck depots to coordinate driver loads.
School of Rock, a music school with over 90 locations, has adopted Chromebooks to reduce the costs, administrative overhead, security and reliability issues that came with managing traditional PCs at remote sites.
And the City of Palo Alto library system has pioneered an innovative new program where patrons can checkout Chromebooks for a week, just like a library book. Given shrinking budgets, this initiative was only possible due to Chromebooks' ease of use and minimal maintenance needs.

We’re excited to see how the next wave of Chromebook customers puts their devices to use and hope that the flexible rental and online purchase options make it even easier for you to bring Chrome devices to your organization.

Bringing Chromebooks to every classroom

Kevin Gough — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 13:30:00 +0000

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Group Product Manager for Chromebooks

(Cross-posted from the Google Chrome Blog.)

Editor's note: We’re posting from sunny Orlando, where we’re chatting with schools at the annual FETC ed-tech conference. We wanted to share highlights from our keynote this morning, which featured a panel moderated by Tom Vander Ark, author of Getting Smart: How Digital Learning is Changing the World. You can watch a replay of the keynote on YouTube. If you’re in town, come visit us at our booth #1101 - we’d love to say hi!

When we first conceived of Chromebooks, we were focused on providing a device that brought you to the web in the fastest, simplest and securest way possible. What we didn't realize at the time was that this device would be so welcome and popular in classrooms! Many schools are eager to improve access to the web and technology for students and are planning to provide each student with their own device – a concept known as "1-to-1" computing. We've heard from our customers that they choose Chromebooks for 1-to-1 because the simplicity of the web takes away the hassle for teachers, students and administrators.

During our keynote at FETC this morning, we had the opportunity to share some exciting news: hundreds of schools in 41 states across the U.S. are using one or more classroom sets of Chromebooks today. As a highlight, three new school districts in Iowa, Illinois and South Carolina are going 1-to-1 – that is, one Chromebook each for nearly 27,000 students.

Council Bluffs Community School District in Iowa is planning a Chromebook 1:1 Initiative for all 2,800 students in their two high schools and will use an additional 1500 Chomebooks in their two middle schools
Leyden Community High School District in Illinois will roll out devices to 3,500 students in their two high schools
Richland School District Two in South Carolina is going 1-to-1 with a total of 19,000 students

It's great to see this positive momentum for Chromebooks in classrooms. It's similar to where we were about five years ago when Google Apps was just getting off the ground. At that time, educational institutions were the most interested and it was inspiring to hear the different ways schools and districts had begun using Gmail, Calendar and Docs. At FETC we’ve been similarly excited to see how teachers have formed communities around professional development for Chromebooks, districts all across the US are piloting Chromebooks in their classrooms, and more and more reach out to us to learn about Chromebooks for Education every day. We believe Chromebooks and the web have the ability to facilitate learning in a powerful way, and we’re committed to helping schools recognize their goals to go 1-to-1.

But enough words from us. We’d like to close with thoughts from representatives of each of these school districts.

“From my perspective, Chromebooks couldn’t get any simpler; setting up this many laptops would have typically taken our team at least 3 months. And from the instructional side, we are teaching content not technology, and Chromebooks simply support teachers in what they do best while giving students the resources they need to be productive citizens. As just one example the quality of work that students turn in has improved literally overnight - from incomplete sentences to full paragraphs, in some cases - because they are much more engaged and participating readily in class.”
David Fringer, executive director, information systems at Council Bluffs Community school district, Iowa

“When we started on our digital evolution path we were looking for just the right tool - one that is invisible and gets out of the way to allow students and teachers to focus on instruction. With Chromebooks our students are publishing, producing and sharing with each other, and best of all, we don’t have to assign students a particular device number. Any student can use any device because all their work is saved online - for that matter they could access their work from home while logged in from the Chrome browser.”
Bryan Weinert, director of technology at Leyden school district, Illinois

Student at East Leyden high school selects a Chromebook from the charging cart. With Chromebooks, students can work on any device in any class period and access their work from anywhere - including from the Chrome browser installed on a home computer.

“Chromebooks make our 1-to-1 computing dream a reality. Teachers don't need to add ‘help desk’ to their job description, and they save valuable class time knowing they can instruct students to close the Chromebooks to stay on task and they won't have to wait when it’s time to open them again. Furthermore, we’ve seen that any behavior issues become an absolute non-issue because the technology is so compelling.”
Tom Cranmer, executive director of information technology, Richland School District Two, South Carolina

Fifth grade student teaches a younger student how to use a Chromebook in the Chrome Buddy project in Tim Swick's classroom at Pontiac Elementary School in Richland School District Two.

Learn more about Chromebooks for Education on our website, and join us for the Chromebook Classroom webinar series, Wednesdays at 9AM PT/12PM ET.

More choices for purchasing Chromebooks

Kevin Gough — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:05:00 +0000

Posted by Glenn Wilson, product manager, Chrome for Business & Education

Four months ago we launched Chromebooks for businesses and schools, and we’ve been inspired by our customers embracing this new way of computing. Over that time we’ve learned a lot about what they need to make this device a great fit in their organizations. One piece of feedback we’ve heard from some customers is that they work with yearly budget cycles. To meet these customers’ needs, in addition to our 3-year subscription model, today we are introducing an alternative payment option. This new option gives schools and businesses a choice to pay upfront for Chromebooks with one year of access to the web-based admin management console, phone support, and hardware warranty coverage. After the first year, customers can choose to pay a monthly fee for years two and three for management console access and support.

Education:

1-Year Upfront: $449 (Wi-Fi), $519 (3G)
Years 2-3: $5/month per Chromebook for management & support

Business:

1-Year Upfront: $559 (Wi-Fi), $639 (3G)
Years 2-3: $13/month per Chromebook for management & support

We have also added a few new features to the web-based management panel to help customers better deploy, monitor and customize their Chromebooks, including group policy management, shipment tracking and asset management.

We’d like to thank all of our early customers for their enthusiasm and for helping us make Chromebooks great for businesses and schools. If you have any questions, feedback, or are interested in purchasing Chromebooks, please contact us.

Helping larger businesses make the most of Google’s cloud services

Kevin Gough — Fri, 30 Sep 2011 21:17:00 +0000

Posted by Rahul Sood, Global Head of Enterprise Partnerships

Today, we’re making it easier for larger businesses to use Google’s cloud services by announcing the Cloud Transformation Program.

With the Cloud Transformation Program, we’ve identified select Google partners that can help you get the most out of Google’s cloud services, including Google App Engine, Google Storage for Developers, Google Apps Script and Google Prediction API. Initially, Cloud Transformation Program partners will offer customized solutions in the following areas:

Cloud-based applications such as websites, mobile apps, social media apps, business process apps and customer-facing web apps built using Google App Engine and Google Apps Script
Predictive solutions such as fraud detection, customer sentiment analysis, and customer churn prediction built using Google Prediction API
Enterprise storage solutions such as storage for applications, data sharing and high-reliability backup built using Google Storage for Developers

Over time, we expect that partners will expand their focus as we add new cloud services.

We’re excited to have CSC, Cloud Sherpas, Cognizant, Opera Solutions, Razorfish, SADA Systems and TempusNova as our initial Cloud Transformation Program partners. These partners all have deep expertise and a proven track record of success helping businesses make the most of their IT investments, so we appreciate their support. To learn how you can use Google’s cloud services in your business, please contact one of our partners directly.

Live webinar: Chromebook innovation

Kevin Gough — Tue, 13 Sep 2011 20:19:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Chromebooks for Business team

With frequent updates, Chromebooks automatically get better over time. During this webinar, you’ll learn about the newest business features for Chromebooks, including VPN and secure Wi-Fi (802.1X) support , as well as apps optimized for Chromebooks that make these computers even more flexible for business.

With built-in Wi-Fi and 3G, it’s rare for Chromebooks to be without internet access. However, we’ll review new offline functionalities for our apps, including the new Gmail Offline app and offline modes for Google Docs and Google Calendar that allow Chromebook users to be productive even without connectivity. And, for employees who need access to their desktop software, we’ll demo a “tech preview” of Citrix Receiver optimized for Chromebooks. If you're a Citrix customer, this app enables access to your virtualized applications right from the web browser. We’ll also include time for Q&A with Chromebook product specialists on topics of your choice.

What: Chromebook innovation - new features, offline apps and Citrix
When: Thursday, September 15, 9am PDT / 12pm EDT / 5pm GST
Preseners: Kevin Gough & Jeff Keltner, Chromebooks for Business team

Register now

Join Google this week at Dreamforce

Kevin Gough — Tue, 30 Aug 2011 19:48:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Google Enterprise team

Google and salesforce.com share a similar vision for cloud computing and we’ve teamed up over the years on a number of joint initiatives, including integrations between AdWords, Google Apps, Google App Engine and Salesforce offerings. This week, salesforce.com is hosting their Dreamforce cloud computing industry event, and we’re happy to be one of the sponsors.

If you’re going to be at Dreamforce this year, come get an update on Google’s products and cloud vision in one of our conference sessions.

And if you’re in the Bay Area during the conference (8/30 - 9/2), but haven’t yet registered for it, good news, the Dreamforce keynotes, super sessions and the expo sessions are now free, so consider registering and coming on by.

Google sessions to attend

Super Session: 3 Million Google Apps Customers: Strategies for Mobile & Social at Work
Date: Thur, 9/1, 2:45 - 3:45 pm
Location: Yerba Buena Center for the Arts - Novellus Theater
See Google products in action, including new mobile and social tools, and hear our customers share their successes and what they’ve learned during cloud adoption. If you're one of a lucky few, you may also walk away with a new Chromebook.

Keynote: Eric Schmidt
Date: Thur, 9/1, 4:30 pm - 5:30 pm
Marc Benioff will hold a fireside chat with Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google, on topics ranging from the evolution of the social enterprise to technology policies necessary to stimulate economic growth.

Chromebooks for Business
Date: Wed, 8/31, 5:00 - 6:00 pm
Location: Moscone West - 3020
Hear how organizations are putting Chromebooks to use and see demos of new Chromebooks, included tools to manage Chromebooks across an organization, and features from our collaboration with Citrix.

Register for Google sessions on the Dreamforce agenda builder. Attendee login.

Expo

Come by booth #611 on the expo floor to try out our latest Chromebooks and ask questions of Google product specialists.

We hope to see you at Dreamforce!

Back to school with Chromebooks for Education

Kevin Gough — Thu, 25 Aug 2011 15:51:00 +0000

Posted by Adam Naor, Chromebooks for Education Business Operations

As summer vacation ends and students prepare for the year ahead, we want to share stories from the first three schools to hit the ground running with Chromebooks for Education. Chromebooks decrease wait times in the classroom with a super-fast bootup, protect against viruses with enhanced security, and regular updates from Google mean that Chromebooks actually get better over time, saving thousands of dollars on maintenance and software upgrades. We asked these three schools to share their stories about how they plan to use Chromebooks this year to make the collaborative classroom a reality.

Chromebooks in the classroom
Contributed by Peter Iles, principal, 7th & 8th grade teacher, and tech lead, Grace Lutheran School, Oshkosh, Wis.

As a small private school in central Wisconsin, Grace Lutheran has not always had the funds to provide students with access to modern technology. Our computer lab was at least seven years old but our budgets were limited, so we had a severe need for low-cost, updated technology. To be honest, we were failing our students in being capable and current with technology and trends.

This summer, we considered three options: a complete PC refresh, Windows loaner laptops, or a set of Chromebooks. The first two choices would cost tens of thousands up front not including additional license fees and time I don’t have to maintain a Windows server environment. Chromebooks were the obvious economical choice, but they also made the most sense from an instructional perspective since we use Google Apps for Education, which is well integrated with Chromebooks. In my English class, students do peer reviews in real-time in Google Docs and with Google Maps and Earth we can do real-world math problems, which is far more tangible than working out of a text book.

In all, 17 Chromebooks will be shared in a classroom throughout the day among 5th through 8th grade students. I’m also actively using the Chromebook web-based management console, which allows me to whitelist certain extensions and pre-install education applications on each student's machine. The web changes the way students interact. And really, we have to change the way we teach. Chromebooks open up the whole world of knowledge - and that is one of the best gifts any teacher can give a student.

Chromebooks as a 1:1 device for sixth graders
Contributed by Tina Heizman, Director of Information Technology, Merton Community School District, Merton, Wis.

I really believe in the power of technology to enhance learning. When our 110 sixth graders return to school in September, they will each receive their own Chromebook to keep and use until they graduate from eighth grade. They will be able to take them home and use the 3G capabilities if needed. With the implementation of the Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education, our goal is to increase critical thinking, communication, collaboration and creativity among students.

When we learned that the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction was finalizing their statewide agreement for Google Apps for Education, Chromebooks seemed like a perfect addition. Giving students Chromebooks will keep them productive and allow my department to focus on helping students and staff, instead of dealing with hardware issues. Three years ago we gave each student in 5th through 8th grades a netbook, but login times have slowed significantly and hardware fails. Students become impatient and prefer to use their cell phones, which we’d like them to avoid for network security reasons. With the Chromebooks’ 8-second boot-up time and an 8-hour battery students can access the information they need, when they need it, and work a whole school day on a single charge.

I used to spend my summer imaging new computers, but using the web-based management console to deploy web apps across all 110 Chromebooks took me less than one hour. My vision is to have the devices be part of the natural classroom environment, available when needed, so learning can be the focus. Chromebooks and Google Apps for Education can do that for us.

Chromebooks on PC carts and in the library
Contributed by Ced Paine, Director of Technology, The Fessenden School, West Newton, Mass.

Fessenden is an independent K-9 school with hundreds of students. My five-member IT team has their hands full with six laptop carts, a computer-stocked library and two busy computer labs. When Chromebooks were announced, I thought “this is perfect, this is what we need.” Keeping desktop software up to date is a bear. Fessenden can now be considered cutting edge and technology-forward.

This year Fessenden will add two carts full of Chromebooks that teachers can reserve using Google Calendar for their lessons. As for the students, they are learning to create and collaborate in new, exciting ways. Chromebooks and the web are what I consider the holy grail of educational tools. Kids don’t think of it as using technology; Google Docs is just a blank screen to start creating. Add in the ability to chat with a peer or their teacher while doing their homework presentation in a different town and the results are just amazing to watch unfold.

In addition to the Chromebook carts, students can borrow a Chromebook from the school library. Eventually, we would like all students in 5th through 9th grades to have their own Chromebook. I’m blown away by the creative ways students and teachers use web technology. There’s one project where throughout the year each group rewrites one chapter of a book using Google Docs. At the end, the entire class has re-written the book in their own words. The web allows the students to be the teachers.

How could you use Chromebooks in your school? Learn more about Chromebooks for Education on our website, or register to join our webinar on Tuesday, August 29 at 11:00 a.m. PDT.

The computer that keeps getting better…

Kevin Gough — Thu, 11 Aug 2011 05:45:00 +0000

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Group Product Manager, Chrome for Business

One of the best things about Chromebooks is that they improve over time with frequent automatic updates. Over the last few months we’ve gotten great feedback from many of our Chromebooks for Business and Education customers, and we’re excited that this week’s latest stable release of Chrome OS includes their top feature requests: VPN and secure Wi-Fi (802.1x) support, and access to virtualized applications.

With VPN support, users can remotely access their private school or business network from a Chromebook so they can use important internal systems while taking advantage of the Chromebook’s portability.

Secure WiFi (802.1X) support lets organizations protect their wireless network and systems by requiring authentication credentials in order for a Chromebook to connect to the network.

Finally, while most new applications will be built for the web, we recognize that some users need to access desktop applications.¹ With the technology preview release of Citrix Receiver for Chrome OS, Citrix customers can now access virtualized versions of their desktop applications, like Adobe Photoshop, using a Chromebook.

Also in this week's release, Chromebooks resume even more quickly – 32% faster in most cases. And users can save paper by using Google Cloud Print’s Print to Docs feature. We’re excited for feedback, and to get the latest features, fixes, and improvements, all users need to do is open their Chromebooks!

If you’re interested to learn how Chromebooks can help your school or business, contact our team.

^{1. IDC, 2010. “Worldwide Software as a Service 2010–2014 Forecast: Software Will Never Be the Same.”↩}

Join our live webinar on Chromebooks for Business

Kevin Gough — Tue, 26 Jul 2011 00:37:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Chromebooks for Business team

How can Chromebooks for Business help your organization? One customer has provided Chromebooks to its distributed sales teams which makes full use of Chromebooks’ long battery life and 3G access. Another is using Chromebooks for support team members who telecommute. They appreciate that Chromebooks’ are easy to use and don’t require trips to headquarters to get the latest updates installed.

Register now for a live webinar this Thursday, July 28 at 12pm EDT, 9am PDT to learn more about Chromebooks for Business. Our team will discuss the total cost of ownership for Chromebooks when compared to other computers, explain the latest security enhancements and share deployment scenarios. We'll also demonstrate how administrators can customize user and device settings, such as applications on the home screen, using the Chromebook management console.

Chrome is Ready for Business

Kevin Gough — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 15:52:00 +0000

When we announced that Chrome is now used by over 120 million users and showed off some of its latest features last week, we saw a tremendous amount of excitement from both users and businesses. Many businesses asked how they can get the benefits of increased security, speed and the modern browser capabilities that Chrome offers with the configurability and customizations they need.

The good news is that businesses don’t need to wait any longer to deploy Google Chrome. Today, we’re announcing that Chrome offers controls that enable IT administrators to easily configure and deploy the browser on Windows, Mac, and Linux according to their business requirements. We’ve created an MSI installer that enables businesses who use standard deployment tools to install Chrome for all their managed users. We’ve also added support for managed group policy with a list of policies and a set of templates that allow administrators to easily customize browser settings to manage security and privacy. For your users that need access to older web applications not yet qualified for Chrome, we also added group policy support to Google Chrome Frame, an Internet Explorer (TM) plug-in that provides Chrome-quality rendering for the broader Web, while defaulting to host rendering for any web applications that still require IE.

By deploying Google Chrome, organizations can take advantage of improved security and web application performance without needing to upgrade other expensive software licenses or buy new hardware. Deploying Google Chrome also gives users access to productivity-enhancing HTML5 web applications. Since Google Chrome is the same as the browser on Chrome OS, admins considering Chrome OS for their organizations can start testing their mission-critical web applications by deploying the Google Chrome browser.

Support for these new administrative features is available to Google Apps for Business admins by phone and email as part of their Apps deployment. For those who are not Google Apps for Business customers, we’ve also posted documentation to assist administrators deploying Chrome inside their organization.

Over the past few months, we’ve worked to test Chrome with admins in a diverse set of large organizations interested in moving to a more secure, modern browser. Organizations such as Vanguard, Boise State University, and Procter & Gamble (and Google!) have already successfully deployed Chrome to thousands of users. They’ve provided us with excellent feedback, and we’re continuing to work on the next set of features that they’ve requested.

What we’ve built is just the start of what we’d like to offer businesses with Google Chrome. We’re excited by the features built so far, and we’re working hard on polishing the next set of policies that will make Google Chrome even more customizable and useful to users in the future. Please give the new features a try and let us know what you think!

Posted by Glenn Wilson, Product Manager and Daniel Clifford, Software Engineer, Google Chrome team

Chrome notebooks check-in to the world’s largest hotel chain

Kevin Gough — Wed, 08 Dec 2010 16:00:00 +0000

Editor’s note: Bryson Koehler is Senior Vice President for Global Revenue & Guest Technology at InterContinental Hotels, the world’s largest hotel group. IHG owns a portfolio of well recognized and respected hotel brands including InterContinental Hotels & Resorts, Hotel Indigo, Crowne Plaza Hotels & Resorts, Holiday Inn Hotels and Resorts, Holiday Inn Express, Staybridge Suites and Candlewood Suites and also manages the world’s largest hotel loyalty program, Priority Club Rewards with 52 million members worldwide.

At InterContinental Hotels, we’re always looking for the latest and greatest technologies to better serve our customers. For instance, our IT staff develops most of our new internal applications as web apps using Google Web Tooolkit, a set of development tools that make it easier to build complex browser-based applications. So when we heard about Chrome notebooks, we jumped at the opportunity to try them out in several different parts of our business. The speed, simplicity and security benefits of this pure cloud computing model were too compelling to resist, particularly in contrast to the costs and hassles of desktop computing.

Some compelling use cases for Chrome notebooks include:

Call centers: We have 13 call centers around the world with thousands of agents whose goal is to get our customers the information they need as fast as possible. We believe the Chrome notebooks will provide our agents with the fastest experience for the web apps and sites that they use to support our customers. By reducing the average time per call, we’ll both increase customer satisfaction and significantly reduce our costs. And from an IT perspective, we won’t have to spend countless hours manually installing security patches and upgrades to operating systems and client software. Instead, we’ll be able to focus our time on creating more innovative apps to the benefit of our customers and our agents.

Business service centers: We have thousands of business service centers around the world that provide Internet access to our guests. The guest login feature of the Chrome notebook is great for this situation since it gives our hotel guests an extremely secure, state-of-the-art browsing experience while preventing them from leaving behind any sensitive information. With the Guest Mode feature, a user doesn’t even need to login to the notebook and all of their information including browsing history, cookies, etc. is deleted when they log out of Guest Mode.

Hotel guests: We’re even looking into providing Chrome notebooks to some of our hotel guests during their stay. Imagine leaving your laptop at home on your next trip, and just picking up a Chrome notebook from the front desk at check-in. You log-in and it’s just like your notebook at home: all your apps, bookmarks and preferences are available at your fingertips!

This is just the beginning. We are excited to pilot Chrome notebooks in all these areas of our business and begin exploring using them for every employee at the company. For us, the web is the platform and we’re excited at the potential of Chrome notebooks to delight our users, save us money, make us even more secure, and allow IT to focus on what makes our business unique. I look forward to making Chrome Notebooks our default computer!

Editor’s note: If you’re interested in getting Chrome notebooks for your team or entire organization, apply for the Chrome notebook Pilot program.

Posted by Kevin Gough, Head of Enterprise Partner & Platform Marketing

Chrome notebooks for business

Kevin Gough — Tue, 07 Dec 2010 19:54:00 +0000

Today we launched the Chrome notebook Pilot program. Chrome notebooks will be great for businesses, schools and government agencies -- especially Google Apps customers -- because they deliver a faster, simpler and more secure computing experience, with lower total cost of ownership than traditional PCs.

Learn more on the Official Google Blog and visit the Chrome notebook site to apply for the pilot.

Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Product Manager, Chrome OS for business

App Tuesday: nine new apps announced for the Apps Marketplace to help your business grow

Kevin Gough — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 15:45:00 +0000

As your business grows, so does the complexity of managing projects, securing data, tracking resource usage, and communicating with coworkers. Today, we are excited to announce nine new installable apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that can help ensure that your business growth doesn't outpace your technological capabilities. So instead of patching servers and updating desktop-based software today, check out some of our more than 150 installable web apps available to Google Apps users. All of these installable apps offer single sign-on functionality so your users can start using them conveniently right from the universal navigation bar in Google Apps. Some have additional integrations with Gmail, Calendar, Docs and other apps, which makes these Marketplace apps more powerful than comparable stand-alone offerings.

Google Apps Premier, Education and Standard Edition administrators can install Marketplace applications in a few simple steps -- watch this video to see how it works.

Complex projects and tasks have a potential to grow out of control and lose focus, so we’ve included a series of project, communication, time, and task-specific management apps in this App Tuesday launch.

DeskAway is a simple, yet powerful web-based project collaboration tool that streamlines the way you and your team work by giving you an accurate view of project progress and tackling some common problems that occur when multiple people are collaborating.
Acunote is an online project management software. It helps you manage projects, products and requirements, track progress, realistically predict completion dates and analyze company productivity.
RescueTime is an automatic time and attention tracker that helps teams work smarter. It is widely used by a range of companies and now has user and team sync for Google Apps accounts, plus a real time stats gadget in Gmail.
ToBeeDo is an online task management service. The familiar, fast and intuitive interface helps you to organize your workflow and it doesn’t require any setup.
Ketera is a network that simultaneously offers savings for business buyers and online sales opportunities for B2B suppliers to help members discover new trading partners and market insights, aiding in billions of dollars in transactions every year.

Your business also requires additional apps to help manage its growing mounds of internal and external information. These applications can help streamline this process:

FormLizard is for when you need paperwork completed properly. You and your customers can complete forms, contracts, and more online, giving you complete, accurate, legible, and professional paperwork every time.
LumoFlow provides social collaboration workspaces for enterprises to manage projects, share documents and keep teams in sync. It also helps connect global business operations and manage joint projects with partners and customers.
MangoSpring Collaboration Suite seamlessly integrates all the MangoApps to provide next generation collaboration experience. Each MangoApp solves an important part of the business workflow.
Backupify provides secure, scalable, and automatic backup for your Gmail, Docs, Calendar, Contacts, and Sites. You can securely access and manage archives of backups from any web browser.

We encourage you to explore some of these great new apps in the Marketplace. Join us next Wednesday when we hold a live webinar to discuss with a few of the app creators on maximizing your productivity with these apps.

Webinar: Increase productivity with new Google Apps Marketplace Apps
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT
Register here

If you've #gonegoogle and tried the #appsmarketplace, let other users know what you recommend via Twitter or submit your suggestion for additional apps.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

LA’s move to Google Apps continues apace

Kevin Gough — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 22:46:00 +0000

Earlier today, the Los Angeles city council voted unanimously in favor of completing the City’s move to Google Apps. More than 10,000 City employees are already using Google Apps for Government, and Los Angeles taxpayers are expected to save more than $5.5 million.

Within a few months and in less than a year since the project began, we expect that all 30,000 city employees, including the 13,000 members of the Los Angeles Police Department and other public safety officials, will be migrated to Google Apps. LA’s move to the cloud is the first of its kind, and it’s not surprising that it’s taken a little longer than anticipated to identify and address all of the City’s unique requirements. We’re very pleased with the progress to date, and are committed to making this a great success for Los Angeles and a milestone for cloud computing.

Posted by Jocelyn Ding, Director of Operations

Make it “App Tuesday”: avoid patches, embrace new apps

Kevin Gough — Tue, 08 Jun 2010 17:02:00 +0000

Does a certain Tuesday each month feel like the movie Groundhog Day, where you find yourself going through the same firedrill with no end in sight? Let’s hope you never have it as bad as the character in this video:

With Google Apps, instead of spending time behind-the-scenes patching existing systems, you can focus on providing new functionality that will have a material impact on your business. The Google Apps Marketplace offers more than 100 cloud apps that integrate with Google Apps, many of which are free to get started, so they’re easy to try and can deliver immediate value to your users.

Marketplace apps come in many sizes, from bite-size apps that add features to Google’s existing applications to large apps that can run major business systems and processes. As an Apps administrator, once you install and evaluate an app, you can deploy it to your users in only a few clicks.

Here’s just a small sampling of apps that have recently been added to the Marketplace for you to try.

Kwaga
See social profiles, a list of all your conversations with a contact, and remember whether or not an email thread remains unanswered - all at the bottom of each mail in Gmail.

Mailchimp
Easily send email newsletters to your customers, manage your subscriber lists, and track campaign performance.

MyERP.com
Deploy CRM, sales, accounting, projects, purchasing, and inventory apps that are integrated with Gmail, Contacts and Calendar.

Promevo
Get an enhanced administration layer for Google Apps that includes role-based access control and delegation.

Viewpath
Manage project workflow and task collaboration with graphically-rich task and resource tracking.

Every month we’ll be highlighting apps that make your users more productive, with no patching required.

And we’re continuing the conversation on our @googleatwork Twitter account with the hashtag #apptuesday. So tell us, what Marketplace apps do you recommend?

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager, Google Enterprise

Google Apps in the wild

Kevin Gough — Wed, 22 Oct 2008 00:01:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager

I was recently forwarded an email from the CEO of Zuora, a Google Apps customer whose company has embraced Apps across the board. According to CEO Tien Tzuo, "Google has been transformative, allowing us to have the nimbleness of a startup but be even more productive that large companies with lots of resources."

They have a lot of characteristics that we see in Apps customers.

- Company: fast growing, geographically distributed
- Employees: knowledge workers, multi-lingual
- Computing environment: Multi-platform (Mac, PC), mobile devices (iPhone, Blackberry)

Tomorrow, Thurs, at 10 AM PT we're hosting a webinar on the security of Google Apps that will also feature details on Zuora's move to Apps. Sign up for the webinar.

Below, posted with Tien's permission, is the initial email he sent outlining how they use various Google Apps. There are lots of great ideas in here.

From: Tien Tzuo
Date: Wed, Oct 1, 2008 at 8:00 PM
Subject: Zuora as case study for Google Apps

Dave -

I wanted to write you to let you know that we are a post-child for Google Apps.

Our company, Zuora, is a 40 person company located primarily in Redwood City, CA and Beijing, China. We also have extended team members in Seattle, Phoenix, and Shanghai. We're a technology company, TechCrunch calls us "The Salesforce of Online Billing".

We run our whole company on Google Apps, and have been since day 1. We're on the Premier Edition.

Our email is Gmail. We access it from all sorts of clients -- Outlook, Entourage, Mac Mail, Outlook Express. I personally just use the browser interface. We also access it from our Blackberries and our iPhones. And we use Google Chat for presence and quick chats. Plus, we get 25GB storage a person! That's 100x greater than what each employee used to get at Salesforce. Gmail is great, we have no intention of every going off of it, I've already vetoed our new CFO's request to put in hosted Microsoft Exchange.

We use Google Calendar. Works great. Fully syncs to my blackberry with Google Sync. Good support for conference rooms, and it even handles invite responses from non-gmail users as well.

We use Google Documents. Almost all of our files are online. We have proposals, documents, weekly status reports, budget spreadsheets, and our corporate directory, all stored in google documents, and all searchable and easy to find.

We use Google Sites. Every feature, every project, every client engagement gets a Google Sites page. We create a Site for every department, and everyone in that department subscribes to changes on that Site. Now, I always have a pulse on what each team is working on.

In addition, Google Sites has been transformative for our development teams. We have developers in Beijing that work together with our developers here, and the challenge was to get people communicating. Email wasn't working, we could not get developers to actively email... chat was problematic because of the time zone differences. We almost decided to re-structure our teams to minimize the need for cross-city communication. Then we discovered Google Sites. Each developer creates a sites page and then starts writing a tech spec for the feature he is working on. Everyone subscribes to the page, and contributes their opinion, and now the Google Sites has become our primary collaboration tool for working across geographies.

We use Google Translate. We let our junior guys in Beijing write specs on Google Sites in Chinese... the American dev team can paste that into Google translate, which translates great. No more language barriers.

We use Google Video. The problem with distributed teams is often, you've never met your teammate. Now, every employee is expected to record a video introducing him or herself and putting it on Google Video. We shoot our team meetings, birthday celebrations, throw it all onGoogle VIdeo, so even though we're in multiple locations, and some of us have never met face to face, we feel like one small team.

We use the Salesforce.com integration to Google Apps. So, all emails to salesforce contacts actually go through gmail and get stored as an activity, so we have the full history.

We use Google Analytics. So we always know the effectiveness of our marketing campaigns. We do lots of A/B testing, and we always know what are our top referring sites, our top search terms, and the demographics of our web site visitors.

And best of all, we have no servers! Nothing to maintain, nothing to backup.

In short, Google has been transformative, allowing us to have the nimbleness of a startup but be even more productive that large companies with lots of resources. This is a story waiting to be told!!!

- tien

Tien Tzuo
CEO
Zuora, Inc.

Google Docs Deep Dive

Kevin Gough — Fri, 16 Nov 2007 23:06:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Acting Product Marketing Director

A few weeks ago a representative from PC Magazine contacted me to let me know that Google Docs had won the magazine's editors choice award. In the online review, the editor mentioned the number of new features added over the last year and called Google Docs "more elegant, efficient, and enjoyable" than other online productivity suites. Since we at Google have a launch early and often mentality, I've gotten comfortable with new features appearing in the Google Apps products that I use on a weekly basis. However, this award caused me to pause and take a look back at all of the new features that have been added to Google Docs since I started using it. There were some features, like presentation capabilities and accessing documents on my mobile phone that I've become instant an convert to. However, looking at the "What's new" page of Google Docs, there were a lot that I'd missed.

One of the most interesting enhancements that I discovered were functions within Google Docs spreadsheets that can automatically pull external data from Google search results, Google News and other sources into spreadsheet cells. Check out the video below to see how these functions can make Google Docs a powerful tool for maintaining up-to-date research on competitors, customers or business opportunities.

We are pleased to present…

Kevin Gough — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 03:56:00 +0000

Posted by Attila Bodis, Software Engineer

A few months ago at the Web 2.0 conference, our CEO Eric Schmidt, in conversation with John Battelle, announced our plans to launch an online presentation application this summer. Well, summer is winding down, and today, people who use Google Apps can create, share, upload and collaborate on online presentations in real time. As part of Google Docs (formerly Google Docs & Spreadsheets), your presentations can be edited from anywhere, shared with specific individuals or an entire organization, and viewed in presentation mode simultaneously by distributed teams.

Maybe you need to revamp an outdated sales presentation -- import it into Google Docs and invite your colleagues to chime in. When it's finished, you can drive the presentation directly from Google Docs as your field sales team looks on. Or maybe you just found out that your group has been called on to deliver a presentation in a couple of hours -- create a presentation from scratch, add your teammates as collaborators, and work on it simultaneously to get it done faster.

For a while now, Google Apps users have asked for a presentations feature within Google Docs to make it easier to create and share presentations online, so this launch is particularly exciting for the Google Docs team. We look forward to developing increased functionality for Google Docs, and we hope to have more to share with you soon.

For more on this, read the post on the main Google Blog.

From the PM to you in under an hour

Kevin Gough — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 17:57:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager

Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager for Google Custom Search Business Edition, will be a featured guest on our weekly public site search webinar series. Nitin will be available to answer questions about Google Custom Search, our new hosted site search offering, or upcoming cricket Test matches. You can sign up for a session on Jul 25 @ 11am PDT or Aug 1 @ 11am PDT.

Have our cake…

Kevin Gough — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 01:49:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager

...and eat it too. On Friday at our company-wide TGIF, we celebrated PC World naming Google Apps Premier Edition #1 on their list of The 100 Best Products of 2007. Google Apps beat out the Nintendo Wii, Apple TV, and the Slingbox Pro, further reinforcing the convergence between business and consumer technology. Internally, Google Apps is a collaboration between Google enterprise and consumer teams. It's great to see that it's paying off.

More Love for the Google Mini

Kevin Gough — Mon, 14 May 2007 16:06:00 +0000

Posted by Cyrus Mistry, Enterprise Product Manager

Google Apps has been getting a lot of love from the press lately, but search was our first Enterprise product line and remains key to our business. Fittingly, "The 360" tech blog published a great interview with Justia's Tim Stanley on the Google Mini. Of course we love the Mini and it's great to hear a customer say: "Purchasing the Google Mini was a no brainer."

Un-convention-al

Kevin Gough — Tue, 08 May 2007 19:58:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager

Some of us on the Enterprise product team spent yesterday at StartUp Camp, an unconference focused on helping the start-up community work through the challenges that arise with getting a business off the ground (something I wish I had had before starting my last company).

The idea of the unconference, based on the Open Space methodology, is to have the attendees drive the agenda, with people interested in the same topics splitting off to different break-out rooms. Imagine the entire day as an extended coffee break at a traditional conference, which for me is usually when I learn the most from my fellow conference goers. All around the conference were reminders of the Open Space principles, including the "Law of 2 Feet," which states that, "If you're not learning or contributing it is your responsibility to respectfully use your two feet & find some place you are." Overall, it was a very refreshing conference format and I could see incorporating some unconference time into a more traditional conference format.

Probably the highlight of the day was "speed geeking," where about 25 start-ups presented their elevator pitches and got feedback/grilled by conference attendees. There were a ton of interesting business models being pitched and I'm happy to report that state of the start-up culture is strong. Thanks to David Berlind, Doug Gold and Sun for organizing the event.

Below are some pics from the event, including some of the attendee-generated topics we discussed.

StartUp Camp 2

GEP connected (Notes from our first European Enterprise partner event)

Kevin Gough — Fri, 04 May 2007 22:08:00 +0000

Posted by Engin Yilmaz, Marketing Manager

Last week, we had our first Google Enterprise Professional (GEP) partner event in Madrid - two days of sharing sales, product and technical knowledge with our partners across Europe. Cisco and CapGemini also presented their insights on Web and Enterprise 2.0, reinforcing our consumerization of IT theme. And during our customer keynote from Vodafone, Dr. Petros Panagiotidis presented data showing that the Google Search Appliance has saved Vodafone a staggering twenty two man years of work!

We also presented our first Enterprise partner awards to:

Mediasurface – "Best ECM Partner" in recognition of embedding the Google Search Appliance in their Morello content management system.
Smartlogik – "Innovative Product Integration" for their Onebox implementation of taxonomy integration.
Sword – "New Business Achievement" acknowledging their work developing connectors for various content management systems.
Scube – "Best Enterprise Mashups" for their multi-discipline approach to customers with Search, Maps and Apps.
Byte – "Best Newcomer" for unsurpassed levels of customer care in their work with Vodafone and their overall performance during the last five months.

We'll be posting video from the event on YouTube in the next few weeks.

VW Website Updates

Kevin Gough — Fri, 04 May 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager

Barry Schwartz over at Search Engine Land pointed out that the VW of America site that I previously blogged about was including site keywords in an invisible div layer on site pages, which is not in keeping with Google site quality guidelines. I reached out to the technical director of VW's creative agency and found out that they were including the keywords in this manner to increase the amount of content crawled by the Google Search Appliance for the Flash-based pages of the site. Once alerted to this, VW switched to including relevant keywords in the META data of the web pages on the site, an approach that is in keeping with Google quality guidelines. Thanks to Barry for pointing this out and to VW for being so responsive to the issue.

Search in the driver’s seat

Kevin Gough — Wed, 02 May 2007 16:07:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager

Recently Volkswagen of America completely redesigned their website www.vw.com, literally making the search box the center of the homepage. The site search is powered by a Google Search Appliance and they've done a lot of cool UI development so that you can see the most frequently searched for terms as well as search results in an expanding drop down window, without leaving the homepage of the site. Besides being a slick design, putting me in control of the site made me think that VW probably applied the same user-centric approach to designing their cars and made the site feel less marketing-y and more education focused. Take the site for a spin.

New Google Apps Demo

Kevin Gough — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 23:48:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Sr. Product & Marketing Manager

The Google Apps website does a pretty good job of describing the various applications, Gmail, Google Calendar, etc., included in Google Apps. However, one of the most powerful aspects of the suite is how integrated the applications are. From accessing email from the personalized start page to adding a appointment to your calendar right from an email, we're working to build a seamless user experience, where you don't have to wait forever for a different desktop application to load before you can get to work. Here's Rajen Sheth, Product Manager, demonstrating some of the unique features of Google Apps.

Maps Mashups Made Easier

Kevin Gough — Fri, 06 Apr 2007 23:55:00 +0000

Posted by Scott McMullan, Enterprise Partner Team

Yesterday the Google Maps team announced a new feature that makes it easier to create custom maps: My Maps. To quote their blog post, "So easy a caveman could do it."

Well, even with my degree in Computer Science, I admit to being a bit of a caveman when it comes to map mashups. I just never got around to it. Sure it was relatively easy, but the point and click, drag and drop features in My Maps makes it so easy that even a... You get the idea.

As an example, last year we announced the Google Mini Map, which required a little programming to create, and a little more to update for each new customer.

Contrast that with the Google Apps partner map I made yesterday in about 10 minutes.

So International

Kevin Gough — Fri, 05 Jan 2007 20:27:00 +0000

Posted by Chris Iremonger, Google Apps Collaboration Specialist

At Google, we believe that the need for information crosses all borders and therefore spend a significant amount of resources localizing and launching our products in new markets. With over 38,000 alumni living and running businesses in 140 countries around the world, few educational institutions understand the need for a global perspective and share the challenges of communicating with an international audience like Thunderbird business school. That's why we're excited to announce that Thunderbird is providing Google Apps for Education, our integrated email, IM and calendaring offering, to all of its students and alumni. (The fact that our email interface is available in 40 languages is a huge plus for them.) Now the Thunderbird administration has an easy way to keep with alumni without having to figure out the postage rate to Paraguay and alumni around the world can more easily collaborate on business opportunities or plan a mini-reunion. Read more about the deployment in their press release.

Savings Measured in Millions

Kevin Gough — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 05:09:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Enterprise Product Manager

Lakehead University became our first large-scale deployment of Google Apps for Education in Canada and shared with us some truly impressive statistics. Lakehead transitioned 38,000 students, faculty and alumni to Google Apps for Education in just one week. We think that getting all three of these groups on the same collaboration system should have a huge impact on learning (and student social calendars) as well as keep alumni involved in the campus community. Users should be excited about going from 60 MB of storage on their prior email system to 2 GB with Google Apps - eliminating the need to delete those large project files that happen to become useful come finals time.

What's most impressive is that Shahzad Jafri, Lakehead's Chief Information Officer, estimates that Lakehead will save $2-3 million in maintenance costs annually as well as $6 million in infrastructure costs - which is a big win for us and them! Read their press release for more information.

Enterprise-apalooza

Kevin Gough — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 19:32:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Product Marketing Manager

Interested in getting a sneak peak at the latest Google Enterprise products? Want to verify that Google is run by humans and not just really smart robots? Join us in November for a breakfast seminar during our Google Enterprise world tour, where our Enterprise execs will share their thoughts on IT trends and you can learn about Google's enterprise search, geospatial and collaboration offerings first hand from product experts.

We'll be stopping by the following U.S. cities: Cincinnati, Baltimore, Washington DC, New York, Indianapolis, Phoenix, Sacramento, San Diego, San Jose and Austin. Learn more and register to attend.

We'll be in the following European cities: London, Berlin, Munich, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Paris. Learn more and sign up.

Start Me Up

Kevin Gough — Tue, 03 Oct 2006 00:35:00 +0000

Posted by James Wang, Google Mini Product Specialist

Yes, I know, you just read that title and now have the Rolling Stones stuck in your head. Well, as you enjoy that mental background music, here's some highlights from a recent review about the Google Mini by Jim Dalrymple from Macworld. Jim heard widespread rumors that the Google Mini was easy to install, and wanted to see if this claim had any truth to it. Here's what he had to say:

"The Mini comes with everything you need to get up and running—the 1U rackmount appliance, a crossover cable, an Ethernet cable and power cord. For the truly challenged among us, Google even colored the cables and the slots they go in to, so that it's nearly impossible to make a mistake."

"It took me about 30 minutes from the time I cracked open the packing tape on the box to the time I did my first search. It was almost too simple—for a while, I wasn't sure I actually finished the complete setup."

"I am impressed with how quickly the box was setup. We all know that Google Search packs a lot of power and it's nice to see the company is able to bring that to small business users in such an easy-to-use box."

We are blushing, Jim. Thank you.

Google en fuego?

Kevin Gough — Thu, 21 Sep 2006 01:30:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Enterprise Product Marketing Manager

Well according to Ken Yarmosh, author of the TECHNOSIGHT blog, Google product manager Rajen Sheth was "on fire" during his keynote at today's The New New Internet conference. Rajen spoke about Google's approach to developing web-based enterprise software and our new Google Apps for Your Domain offering. Upon hearing Ken's proclamation, Rajen responded, "I'm fired?" No Rajen, quite the opposite. Read Ken's synopsis of Rajen's talk and view a few video clips from it.

Forbes says SMBs win with Google apps

Kevin Gough — Mon, 11 Sep 2006 05:22:00 +0000

Posted by Kevin Gough, Google Enterprise

This week, Google applications won in four out of six categories and got runner up in a fifth category in Forbes' review of the best web-based applications for SMBs. Google winners included Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Notebook and Google Spreadsheets. These accolades came only a week after we launched Google Apps for Your Domain, our suite of integrated productivity tools that includes Gmail and Google Calendar. If the whole is better than the sum of its parts, then Google Apps for Your Domain is going to make SMBs even more effective and given really positive initial feedback, we hope that it too finds a place in the winners circle next year.

Search in Style

Kevin Gough — Fri, 18 Aug 2006 18:43:00 +0000

A boon to academics everywhere, the Chicago Manual of Style chose to use the Google Mini to power search in its first online version, coming out next month. Previously harried college students had to first find the Manual of Style under a pile of laundry then leaf through dog-eared sections to find information. Now they can now get instant information on how to properly cite sources such as online articles without page numbers - making Wikipedia and MySpace the #1 and #2 most popular reference sources for the under 25 set. And because of the Google Mini's automated spell checker, they can even misspell "parenthetical citation." We won't tell their high school English teachers.

Don’t Hassle the Hoff

Kevin Gough — Wed, 26 Jul 2006 06:41:00 +0000

From his talking Trans Am on the television show Knight Rider to his suped-up patrol boat on Baywatch, David Hasselhoff clearly has an eye for performance machines in sleek packages. That's why, when he stopped by Google's London office this week, he was excited to take the Google Search Appliance out for a spin with our UK sales manager, Robert Whiteside. Add an oscillating red light to the front of the appliance, and we think it's ready for a cameo in David's latest video.

How I Learned to Stop Guessing and Use Analytics

Kevin Gough — Wed, 19 Jul 2006 21:22:00 +0000

As a product management intern with the Enterprise team this summer, I've seen a number of Mini customers use its reporting features to optimize their site and search - with great results - and it seems like a no-brainer to me to enable our customers to go a step further, using Google Analytics. Analytics is a sophisticated and free web analytics product that provides both key integrations with Google Adwords and comprehensive reporting on visitor behavior, content performance and e-commerce. Google Analytics is an easy-to-use, web-based system designed to reveal how users interact with your site and to help you improve your web presence. More often than not, we're finding that the customers who are concerned about search performance and who are purchasing Minis are the same customers who are turning around and using real usage data to optimize their websites.

So after only about a month here, I'm really excited to announce the completion of my first project - the distribution of free Google Analytics accounts to all current Google Search Appliance and Google Mini owners!

Google Analytics will help Enterprise customers answer questions like:

"What is my most popular content, the new product pages for our big release or the company party pictures?"

"Which Adwords are the most profitable, and which campaigns are best?"

"How popular is our user registration process, and how often do those who sign up then purchase a product? Or are users just after the free content?"

"We've heard internationalization is a good thing – but where are our visitors coming from and what technologies are they using to access our site? Wouldn't it be neat if we could visualize all of these visitors on a world map?"

If you're a customer, you can locate your very own account code by signing into your http://support.google.com/enterprise account and clicking on the Profile link on the left-side bar. Once you retrieve your account code, go to https://www.google.com/analytics/home/ and click on the "Sign Up Now" link. Upon filling in your account details and pressing the "Create my account," button, you'll be given the ability to enter your Analytics account code. Also on http://support.google.com/enterprise, you'll find a brief document which summarizes the advantages of Google Analytics and how to pair it with the Mini.

With the combination of the Google Mini or Search Appliance and Google Analytics, I expect we'll see a ton more success stories like the great ones in these customer videos.

Keep checking back!

-Matt Kulick