"Why I sleep better at night with Google Apps," by Camille Wehs, IT Director, City of Canton, GA

Note: We are pleased to welcome Camille Wehs, IT director for the City of Canton, GA, as our guest blogger today. The City of Canton recently selected Google Apps Premier Edition for its messaging and collaboration needs, saving more than $10,000 and untold IT hours. Members of the City of Canton team and will be on hand next week to talk about that experience in a webinar exploring how Google Apps can help businesses of all sorts reduce costs.

My name is Camille Wehs and I'm the IT director for the City of Canton, Georgia. Canton was the fifth-fastest growing city in the United States according to the 2005 US census. Since we are only 30 miles from Atlanta, we've experienced rapid growth in our residential population -- and have consequently witnessed a parallel increase in demand for our fire, police, water treatment, and zoning/planning services, all of which have been challenged by Canton's growth.

Our rapid population increase also put a strain on other parts of our city infrastructure. On the IT side of things, spam emails were overwhelming our security systems and our email server required constant maintenance. With only one IT person (me!) serving 185 city employees, I spent a lot of time trying to ensure our IT infrastructure was keeping up with our growing needs for fast and effective communications and easy-to-use collaboration tools. In the end, my on-premise software couldn't keep up, so I moved our IT infrastructure to Google Apps. And I have to say, I've slept better since I did!

We now have a first-rate solution at a fraction of the price of our old one. Our employees have more functionality than they did before – instant messaging, video, and site publishing tools in addition to the basics of email, calendar, and word processing/spreadsheets. Because everything is hosted by Google "in the cloud" our employees can access their docs or mail from anywhere – a nice solution in the event of disaster. What I like most of all is that we can add or subtract user accounts as our budget dollars go up or down.

Many people have asked me about my experiences and I am happy to share lessons learned. Please join me for a webinar next Thursday, January 22, 2009, at 1:00 PM EST, 12:00 PM CST, 10:00 AM PST, where I will be on hand to answer questions about how we brought Google Apps into the City of Canton government offices and why that decision is helping us succeed.

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps Marketing

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Students and others find what they're looking for with Google Search

When you think about all that a university has to offer, you probably think of classes, curriculum, and alumni activities. But universities have much more to share. In fact, they provide information to a surprising number of communities – current and prospective students, faculty members, alumni, sports or team fans, and regional audiences interested in recreational or cultural events, to name a few.

All of this information is usually centralized on the university's web site – but structuring the diverse data these sites present in a way that makes it "findable" can challenge even the best web architects. That's where the Google Search Appliance (GSA) comes in. By powering a university website with search, the GSA lets any visitor type zero in on the information they're after without having to navigate page after page, or seek one-off answers through phone calls or emails.

Especially in these financially-stretched times, universities (and everybody else) appreciate the savings when successful website search minimizes follow-ups and employee attention and time.

Illinois State University, for example, uses the GSA to streamline the way that students find the latest information on classes and schedules. Their customized "Course Finder" delivers results through the familiar Google search box, so visitors already know how to search for answers. Users easily customize searches by departments, time slots, instructors, or other criteria – and, because the GSA reaches beyond website data for results, public information on the university's mainframes or servers is instantly findable.

Mark Troester, Illinois State University's Director of Web Support, says that using the GSA accelerates the speed at which information reaches visitors. “The Google Search Appliance saved enormous time and effort,” he says, “and integrated seamlessly with our existing IT infrastructure.”

The team at Illinois State University has offered to share their experience with GSA – along with updates on Google Apps and Security solutions on campus – at an upcoming webinar, Google Search for Your School, on January 21, 2009 at 11:00 AM PST. We hope you'll join us by participating in the webinar and learning what Google search can do for your website.

Posted by Vijay Koduri, Google Search Appliance Team

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A new layer of data access security for Google Apps

Helping businesses, schools and organizations keep information safe is critical, and we've been providing Google Apps customers with a spectrum of capabilities to help ensure that only authorized users have access to information accessible from the cloud, including SSL options, single sign-on capabilities, and administrative controls for how widely users can share and publish information from Google Docs, Google Sites and Google Calendar.

Today we're adding a new layer of security: the ability for administrators to set password length requirements and view password strength indicators to identify sufficiently long passwords that may still not be strong enough.


What's more, because the Google Account authentication system continuously sees new variations of password attacks from around the world, we can assess password strength in real-time and help administrators spot passwords that were relatively secure in the past that are more vulnerable to the latest patterns of attacks.

Premier and Education Edition administrators can access these features from the administrative control panel under 'Advanced Tools' > 'Advanced Password Settings'.

To help their users choose strong passwords, admins can share our password selection tips.

Posted by Eran Feigenbaum, Director of Security, Google Apps

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Channeling the Cloud: Announcing the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program

We shared some big news today on the Official Google Blog, Google Enterprise has launched another way of bringing Google Apps to business users around the world through a new Authorized Reseller program focused on partners and the services and solutions they provide: www.google.com/apps/resellers.

While Google Apps is easy to use and many businesses will continue to come to us directly online or through our Enterprise team, many appreciate the services provided by local firms who are intimately familiar with their particular needs. We're looking forward to working with a broad range of partners, from VARs and IT consultants to professional services firms and global systems integrators, to ISPs and other SaaS providers.

With over 1 million businesses and 10+ million active users in more than 100 countries, Google Apps adoption is set to accelerate even further in 2009. This provides partners with a great opportunity to expand their expertise into cloud computing while building profitable new businesses.

Over the past few quarters we worked closely with a group of 50+ pilot resellers from more than 25 countries to develop and refine the program. We've also built our channel program around the SaaS model from the ground up. Even the tools for reselling are built directly into our cloud-based service, so that even the smallest providers serving the smallest companies can easily set up and manage many customers efficiently.

Google provides resellers with a full set of marketing and sales materials, available in 25 languages, along with technical training, a reseller discount, and the suite of tools for ordering, provisioning, and managing customers. Resellers have the ability to market and sell Google Apps, bundle in complementary offerings, and get customers up and running. They also set commercial terms with their customers, manage all customer billing, and can thereby grow their client relationships. Partners receive recurring revenue streams both from reselling Google Apps and from their complementary services, for the lifetime of the customer.

Google is committed to the success of our Apps users, and so we are committed to work very closely with our resellers to help them develop industry-leading SaaS expertise while we continue to focus on building powerful, easy-to-use cloud computing products that will provide partners with additional reselling and services opportunities.

We look forward to delivering even greater value to our business users in 2009 by working with highly skilled, locally deployed resellers who share our commitment to customer success with Google Apps.

Posted by Stephen Cho, Director, Google Apps Channels

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Serving businesses better with Google Apps

Today we're making a change to better align the versions of Google Apps with the interests of business customers and resellers. Starting today, Standard Edition will support a maximum of 50 users for new customers. Existing Standard Edition customers with more than 50 users can continue their current service at no charge, and schools and non-profits of all sizes still have access to the free Education Edition.

We're making this change for two key reasons. Besides achieving tremendous savings, many companies, especially those with more than 50 users, choose Premier Edition to meet critical business needs like data migration and integration tools, granular administrative controls, larger storage quotas, and phone support. Providing Premier Edition customers with new, innovative capabilities is a key area of focus for us; in the last few months we've added secure video sharing, SSL enforcement options, shared contacts, and support for OAuth while also expanding our uptime guarantees. Companies that have selected Premier Edition over Standard Edition have been more satisfied with the experience, so this adjustment to Standard Edition reflects the needs of our customers and mirrors market demand.

Second, more clarity about which version of Google Apps is suited for larger businesses allows partners to participate in the new Google Apps Authorized Reseller program (just announced today) without concerns about competing against a free service offered directly from Google.

All in all, we expect this change helps more business adopt Google Apps through the reseller program and that our messaging and collaboration suite provides more value to businesses. It's also important to us that organizations with less advanced needs, those already active on Standard Edition, and all schools and non-profits can continue to use Google Apps at no charge.

Posted by Rishi Chandra, Google Apps Product Manager

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Putting the "App" in "H-App-y New Year"

Here at Google, we like to have some fun, at least some of the time (we hope it's the same for your business, too). A few days back, we sparked a bit of interoffice fun by virtually "bouncing" Google Apps from person to person as a New Year's greeting.

I guess it was kind of like tossing a balloon from cubicle to cubicle, if you will – except in this case, the cubicles were cities, continents, and timezones away from each other. But the "toss" worked, just the same, and we had enough fun with it that we wanted to share it with you here. Enjoy, and Happy 2009 from all at Google Enterprise.




Posted by Kevin Gough, Google Enterprise Team

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Google Earth: now you CAN take it with you

When Lionel Barrymore ("Grandpa Martin Vanderhof") told Jimmy Stewart ("Tony Kirby") "You Can't Take it With You," he clearly wasn't talking about Google Earth Enterprise.

Starting immediately, you can take Google Earth Enterprise with you, thanks to a new portable version – an extension to the technology behind programs like Virtual Alabama, below, and the US Forest Service's Automated Flight Following.



Google Earth Enterprise lets customers build globes with their own data that can be accessed with the same fast, easy-to-use technology as Google Earth. Previously, Google Earth Enterprise customers could only access their private Google Earth globes when connected to the network. Sometimes, when working in the field, limited or no network connectivity prevented our customers from accessing the full potential of the geospatial data.

The portable version of Google Earth Enterprise allows organizations to distribute geospatial data to their employees where bandwidth is limited or unavailable – such as emergency workers responding to a disaster. Customers can deploy the portable solution for a single individual, or for a multi-person team.

This version is also appropriate for situations when users are away from their desks and need to access an organization's geospatial data. Data collected in the field can also be transferred to the primary system when network connectivity is available.

We're always listening and working to improve our products, and we look forward to hearing about the new and innovative uses you find for this technology.

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Enterprise Team

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