New ways to experience better collaboration with Google Apps

The Google Apps collaboration tools have steadily and swiftly improved over the last couple years, and many companies have found that Google Docs and Google Sites are faster, simpler and more powerful than traditional software for the majority of common tasks, especially tasks where people need to work efficiently together. Today, we’re launching two new initiatives to help more people experience the productivity benefits of web-powered collaboration.

First, Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office is now available worldwide. This plugin for Microsoft Office is available to anyone with a Google Account, and brings multi-person collaboration to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications that you may still need from time to time. The plugin syncs your work through Google’s cloud, so everyone can contribute to the same version of a file at the same time. Learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration will help more people make a faster transition to 100% web collaboration tools.



We’re also introducing the 90-Day Appsperience program, a way for companies that currently use cumbersome legacy systems to see how web-powered tools help their teams work together more effectively. A nominal fee covers 90-day access to Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Cloud Connect and more, as well as assistance from Google experts to help coworkers quickly become more productive together. And companies trying Google Apps can use the new collaboration dashboard in the Google Apps control panel to assess the value of our tools. The dashboard provides data on how people are using Apps to collaborate more efficiently without the hassles of document versions, check-in/check-out or attachments.

If you’re curious how your company could become more agile, efficient and innovative with better tools for teams to work together, read more about these updates on the Google Enterprise Blog.

Posted by Shan Sinha, Google Apps Product Manager

More “I do”s, less “to-do”s: wedding planning simplified

(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog and the Google Photos Blog)

For many, your wedding day is one of the biggest, most momentous days of your life. The perfect dress, the right tuxedo, the proper shade of blue, the three-tier cake with chocolate fondant, and all of your closest family and friends—these are just a few of the many things you might think about for your special day. Although there’s much to consider and a lot of work to do, the payoff is great: it’s one of the happiest days of your life.

To help you plan this important day we’ve created wedding-specific templates in Google Sites, Google Docs and Picnik, and gathered tips and tricks for using these and other Google products at google.com/weddings. From wedding websites to save-the-date cards, these tools simplify wedding planning, letting you focus your time on the fun things—like tasting cakes!

We teamed up with renowned wedding planner Michelle Rago, who provided her insight and creativity to guide the designs you’ll find on this new site. Michelle also shared her experience to provide tips and advice to keep your guests comfortable and you sane.

We’re also hosting a wedding sweepstakes, so if you’re getting married in the next year you can enter for a chance to win $25,000 towards your dream wedding (see Official Rules). Plus, Michelle Rago and her team will advise the winning couple on location, flowers, food and other design elements to create a day that is uniquely their own.

Visit google.com/weddings to start planning, or share the site with your favorite betrothed couple and help them on their way to wedded bliss.

Posted by Lisa Conquergood, Senior Product Marketing Manager

Advanced sign-in security for your Google account

(Cross-posted on the Gmail Blog)

Has anyone you know ever lost control of an email account and inadvertently sent spam—or worse—to their friends and family? There are plenty of examples (like the classic "Mugged in London" scam) that demonstrate why it's important to take steps to help secure your activities online. Your Gmail account, your photos, your private documents—if you reuse the same password on multiple sites and one of those sites gets hacked, or your password is conned out of you directly through a phishing scam, it can be used to access some of your most closely-held information.

Most of us are used to entrusting our information to a password, but we know that some of you are looking for something stronger. As we announced to our Google Apps customers a few months ago, we've developed an advanced opt-in security feature called 2-step verification that makes your Google Account significantly more secure by helping to verify that you're the real owner of your account. Now it's time to offer the same advanced protection to all of our users.

2-step verification requires two independent factors for authentication, much like you might see on your banking website: your password, plus a code obtained using your phone. Over the next few days, you'll see a new link on your Account Settings page that looks like this:

Take your time to carefully set up 2-step verification—we expect it may take up to 15 minutes to enroll. A user-friendly set-up wizard will guide you through the process, including setting up a backup phone and creating backup codes in case you lose access to your primary phone. Once you enable 2-step verification, you'll see an extra page that prompts you for a code when you sign in to your account. After entering your password, Google will call you with the code, send you an SMS message or give you the choice to generate the code for yourself using a mobile application on your Android, BlackBerry or iPhone device. The choice is up to you. When you enter this code after correctly submitting your password we'll have a pretty good idea that the person signing in is actually you.

It's an extra step, but it's one that significantly improves the security of your Google Account because it requires the powerful combination of both something you know—your username and password—and something that only you should have—your phone. A hacker would need access to both of these factors to gain access to your account. If you like, you can always choose a "Remember verification for this computer for 30 days" option, and you won't need to re-enter a code for another 30 days. You can also set up one-time application-specific passwords to sign in to your account from non-browser based applications that are designed to only ask for a password, and cannot prompt for the code.

To learn more about 2-step verification and get started, visit our Help Center. And for more about staying safe online, see our ongoing security blog series or visit http://www.staysafeonline.org/. Be safe!

Posted by Nishit Shah, Product Manager, Google Security

Google Apps highlights – 1/28/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

Over the last couple of weeks, we added ways to keep up with new messages in Gmail and printing capabilities from Gmail mobile and mobile documents, and announced a partnership with Verizon to make it easier for millions more businesses to start using Google Apps.

Desktop notifications for Gmail
When people switch to web-based email, sometimes they miss seeing desktop alerts when new mail is waiting to be read. In the past, Gmail required a helper application to show alerts, but on Wednesday we made it so Gmail can display desktop notifications for new email and chat messages with nothing more than a browser. If you use Google Chrome, you can enable desktop notifications in the Gmail settings panel.

Search-as-you-type for Gmail Labs
Gmail Labs is a testing ground where you can try out new features and provide feedback on your experiences. As the list of Labs has grown to more than 50 options, we wanted to make it easier to find features you’re interested in, so we introduced search-as-you-type on the Labs page. With just a few keystrokes, you can pinpoint just what you’re looking for—no more scrolling down a long list of options to find what you want.


Unread message icon in Gmail Labs
The Gmail tab in your browser displays how many unread messages you have, but if you have lots of tabs open or use pinned tabs in Google Chrome, the Gmail browser tab is too small for you to see the count of unread messages. On Tuesday we added a new Lab that shows your unread message count in the browser tab icon, so you can always see at a glance how many new messages you have. Visit the Gmail Labs settings page and type “unread” in the new search box to find and try this feature.


Cloud Print for Gmail and Docs
Printing is sometimes tricky even when you’re in the same room as your printer, not to mention when you want to print on a remote printer or from a mobile device. Last year we introduced Cloud Print to make printing easier from any device to any Cloud Print-enabled printer, without the need for any special software. On Monday we added support for Cloud Print to Gmail mobile and mobile documents, so now you can print messages and documents directly from your phone or tablet to your Cloud Print-enabled printer.

Education category in the Google Apps Marketplace
Businesses, schools and organizations can shop for third-party applications, features and services that complement Google Apps in the Marketplace, and over the last few months we’ve seen a surge in listings geared for schools and universities. To make it easier for schools to link up with great partners in their field, we added a dedicated category for educational listings. There you’ll find powerful add-ins from LearnBoost, Grockit, Aviary and many other education software providers.


Who’s gone Google?
More than 3 million businesses, plus many more schools, non-profits and government agencies have switched to Google Apps over the last few years, and we’re looking forward to helping the next wave of customers get started. To that end, we’re thrilled to have Verizon as our newest partner. Verizon will provide Google Apps to many of their small business broadband customers, making it possible for businesses to obtain a more complete set of small business IT services from a single provider. Welcome to Google Apps!

I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For more details and the latest news, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Port your existing mobile number to Google Voice

(Cross-posted from the Google Voice Blog)

867-5309 could be one of the most iconic phone numbers of all time—but it’s not the only number that a lot of us remember by heart. Many of us have a phone number that we've shared with family, friends and contacts over the years and are reluctant to let go.

One of the most frequent requests we hear from people who use (or want to use) Google Voice is that they’d like to get all of Google Voice’s features without having to give up their long-time phone numbers.

Today, we’re excited to announce that Number Porting is available for all existing Google Voice users. This means you can make the mobile number you’ve always used your Google Voice number, so it can ring any phone you want—or even your computer.



To get started with Number Porting, log in to your Google Voice account, visit the Settings page and click on “Change / Port” next to your Google Voice number.

Porting your number to Google Voice costs $20 and is usually completed within 24 hours. You may incur additional charges, including early termination fees, from your wireless carrier. Contact your carrier to get more details about the charges applicable to you.

After porting your number to Google Voice your mobile service plan will be cancelled, and there are a couple of steps that you’ll have to take to continue making and receiving calls on your mobile device. For more detailed instructions on how Number Porting works and to find tips for making the process as smooth as possible, visit the Google Voice Help Center.

Number Porting is currently available for existing Google Voice users and will become available to new users within the next few weeks, and at this time, Google Voice is available in the U.S. only.

Update 2:35PM: Included more details about the porting process.

Posted by Robert Dong, Software Engineer

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

Today we’re launching a new education category in the Google Apps Marketplace to help schools and universities easily discover and deploy new web applications that integrate with their existing Google Apps accounts.

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

The new Apps Marketplace education category includes more than 20 applications from 19 vendors. These include web-based learning management systems (LMS) such as Haiku, student tools such as Digication for e-Portfolios, and learning platforms such as DreamBox learning games and BrainPOP educational content, all of which integrate with Google Apps through single sign-on and access through the Google universal navigation bar.

Thousands of universities, colleges and K-12 schools around the world with more than 10 million users already deploy Google Apps in their classrooms. The applications we're introducing today are just the beginning of making Apps and the Marketplace more vibrant and helpful for schools, and more web applications—by Blackboard, Knewton and Khan Academy—are already on the way. We look forward to further expanding and strengthening our set of education tools going forward.



On Wednesday, February 2, we’re holding live Google webinars and Q&A so you can learn more about the education category and hear directly from the developers of these applications.

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

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

Posted by Julia Stiglitz, Google Apps for Education Team

Google Apps highlights – 1/7/2011

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

It’s a new year, and we have new reasons to celebrate what’s possible with Google Apps. Since our last update, we’ve made it easier to track spreadsheet revisions and work with videos in Google Docs, added two new security features for organizations using Gmail and introduced new capabilities to make migrating to Google Apps even easier.

Revision history for spreadsheets
A few months ago we added better revision history tools for documents in Google Docs, and we just added a similar revision history tool for spreadsheets. Spreadsheet changes made by each co-author are marked by a different color, and you can easily see all of the changes made to your spreadsheet cell-by-cell.


Video player in the document list
Google Docs lets groups collaborate simultaneously on documents, spreadsheets, presentations and drawings, but you can also use it to upload and share a wide range of file types. Previously, if you uploaded and shared a video file, people you shared with could only download the file. Yesterday we released an update which lets you play many videos right from Google Docs, no file download required.


A safer email environment for customers
Organizations using Google Apps usually provide unrestricted email access to their users, but some organizations—like K-12 schools—want to prevent outsiders from interacting with a subset of their users over email. On Tuesday, we released a feature enabling an email “walled garden,” so organizations can meet this requirement. K-12 schools can help protect youngsters, and other types of organizations can provide limited email accounts to select employees, like contractors.

DKIM email authentication for improved email delivery
Yesterday we made it possible for customers to easily validate their outgoing email with DKIM digital signatures. DKIM allows many receiving email systems to verify whether an incoming message truly originates from the domain in the message’s “sent from” field. Spam filters can then use the reputation of the sender’s domain to help separate good mail from spam. For customers, using DKIM authentication means their outgoing mail is less likely to get caught up in their recipients’ spam filters.


Chrome browser for organizations
Google Chrome is built for speed, security and the ability to run the most sophisticated web-based applications. Until recently, it was tough for businesses to deploy Chrome as a successor or alternative to traditional browsers, but last month we added capabilities to Chrome so IT administrators can efficiently deploy and manage Chrome across their organizations. We’ve also made it possible for businesses to centrally deploy Chrome Frame to improve the performance of Internet Explorer®.

Improved tools for moving existing data to Google Apps
Customers are already moving data from legacy systems to Google Apps at an astounding rate, and we’ve just made improvements to our data migration tools. Whether you’re moving from Microsoft® Exchange, Lotus Notes® or other IMAP-based email systems, it’s now even easier to move email, calendar and contacts data into Google’s cloud.

Who’s gone Google?
Tens of thousands of businesses, schools and other organizations took advantage of the holiday break to move over to Google Apps. Some of the noteworthy additions include Compositites One, Broadway Maylan and BI-LO. We also heard some great stories from Traffic Konzept + Film GmbH a team of explorers and filmmakers on a first-ever expedition to sail both North Pole passages in a single season. You can learn more about their adventure and how they use Google Apps here:



I hope these product updates and customer stories help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

你好, नमस्ते and bonjour to better mobile web Gmail

(Cross-posted from the Google Mobile Blog)

There are many ways to get your Gmail on your phone. The mobile webapp version of Gmail (which you can get to by going to gmail.com in your browser) is the best way to get the most Gmail features on your iPhone or Android-powered device. Features such as search, stars, labels and threaded conversations all work in the mobile webapp just as they do in the desktop Gmail experience. Today, we’re bringing the latest version of our HTML5 webapp to 44 new languages.



Before today, this new version was only available for U.S. English, but we’re now expanding to Arabic, Bulgarian, Catalan, Chinese (Traditional and Simplified), Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English (UK and American), Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Icelandic, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Malay, Norwegian (Bokmal), Polish, Portuguese (for both Portugal and Brazil), Romanian, Russian, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Spanish (for both Spain and South America), Swedish, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, Urdu and Vietnamese.

If your phone’s default language is one of those listed, go to gmail.com in your phone’s browser and the new interface will appear in your language automatically. We’ve been rolling these changes out, so some of you may have already seen them. You’ll get a bunch of new goodies including offline support, smart links (titles will appear in links for Google Maps, YouTube and Google Docs), the ability to add and remove labels, layout improvements and more—in addition to the existing features like starring, better threaded conversations and search.

This new version works for iPhones running iOS 2.2.1 and above, and all versions of Android. Go to gmail.com in the browser of your iPhone or Android-powered device to try it out, and if you have any feedback, let us know in our forum.

Posted by Scott Eblen, Product Manager

Introducing Google Message Continuity, powered by Postini

When we acquired Postini in 2007, we incorporated additional cloud-based spam and virus filtering, email archiving and encryption services into our Enterprise products. We had a vision that the power of the cloud could deliver not only increased productivity and collaboration but also security and corporate compliance tools for organizations of all sizes. Today, a new Google Postini service takes this vision of the cloud and extends it to on-premises email environments.

Google Message Continuity is a cloud-based email continuity solution—a service that helps ensure that you always have access to your email. Organizations running on-premises email systems, such as Microsoft® Exchange, can run the risk of losing email access—or even worse, their email data—during a server outage, which can impact employee productivity, revenue and even company credibility. Research suggests that a 500-person company could lose nearly $90,000 annually due to email outages*, which a continuity solution could help prevent.

Google Message Continuity works by replicating email accounts hosted on Microsoft® Exchange Servers in the cloud, using Gmail, Calendar and Contacts. If the Microsoft® Exchange Server fails, or requires scheduled maintenance or downtime, all you have to do is log into Gmail and continue regular, up-to-date email communication through Google. Since Gmail and Microsoft® Exchange are constantly synchronized with each other, you can seamlessly switch from one email environment to the other. Additionally, features such as synchronous replication that are built into Google’s architecture help ensure that your data won’t be lost at any point while being delivered to you with maximum efficiency.

Google Message Continuity can also help organizations transition to Google Apps down the road. Since Microsoft® Exchange and Gmail are always in sync with one another, there’s no need to migrate email data when eventually deploying Google Apps. With Gmail, Calendar and Contacts available, users can get familiar with these cloud services without having to abruptly stop using their regular email system.

Google Message Continuity takes Gmail’s availability and extends it to Microsoft® Exchange users, delivering on the cloud’s promise of greater reliability and security for organizations of all sizes. And with research suggesting that on-premises email solutions often face regular email downtime, this extension just seems to make sense.

For more information on Google Message Continuity, stop by the Google Enterprise Blog or visit www.google.com/postini.

*Osterman Research, 2009. “Key Issues in Selecting an Email Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity Solution”

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Group Product Manager, Google Apps

SAP joins the Google Apps Marketplace with a collaborative decision-making app

Today SAP, the leading provider of business software to more than 100,000 customers in more than 120 countries, is launching their SAP StreamWork collaborative decision-making app in the Google Apps Marketplace. SAP StreamWork brings together people and information—from the web, the desktop or business systems—and applies structure to discussions with business tools including pro/con tables and polls to drive fast, meaningful results.

Just like the other 200+ Marketplace applications, users will be able to login to their StreamWork account with their Google Apps account and navigate to it from the Google universal navigation bar. SAP will bring deeper integrations in the near future.

To learn more, read the guest blog post on the Google Enterprise blog by David Meyer, SAP’s senior vice president of On-Demand, Productivity and Sustainability Solutions and register to attend our live webinar with SAP discussing tools to optimize your business processes at 11:00 a.m. PT on December 14.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Google Apps Marketplace Team

Google Apps highlights – 12/3/2010

This is part of a regular series of Google Apps updates that we post every couple of weeks. Look for the label “Google Apps highlights" and subscribe to the series. - Ed.

The Google Apps team had a nice Thanksgiving break, but that didn’t slow things down one bit. Over the last few weeks we’ve introduced mobile editing in Google Docs, automatic typo correction, improvements to meeting scheduling and the ability for businesses, schools and organizations using Google Apps to access more than 60 additional applications from Google.

Document editing in your mobile browser
Google Docs has always offered a central place where you can find and edit documents in your computer’s browser, and now English-language users can edit documents on the go from many Android and iOS devices including the iPhone and the iPad. Your mobile edits show up in near real-time for co-authors, and you can see their edits as they happen on your mobile device. As before, you can also edit spreadsheets from your mobile browser.



Faster, more accurate typing in documents
If you’ve never memorized all those pesky exceptions to the “I before E” spelling rule, you’ll like the new AutoCorrect feature for documents, which can fix typos and format symbols like ¼ and © on the fly as you type. You can edit the text replacement list for your own habitual typos in the Tools > Preferences menu of Google documents.


Optional attendees in Google Calendar events
On Monday we released a highly requested feature in Google Calender: the ability to invite optional attendees to appointments and meetings. Allowing non-critical attendees to be optional makes it easier to find convenient meeting times for key attendees, and helps everyone understand which meetings they really need to attend. Just click “Make some attendees optional” when creating an event to get started.


10 times more applications for Google Apps customers
Until now, businesses, schools and organizations have only had access to a limited set of applications with their Google Apps accounts, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and a few others. But customers gave us overwhelming feedback that they wanted to manage multiple phone numbers with Google Voice, publish their organization’s blog with Blogger, find customers with AdWords, track industry news with Google Reader and much more. After extensive testing with pilot users, we’ve now made it possible for Apps customers to use more than 60 additional Google applications with their Google Apps accounts. This gives customers access to a tremendous amount of innovation that a typical office suite could never offer.



Who’s gone Google?
Organizations all around the world are switching to Google Apps in droves. We’re especially pleased that the U.S. General Services Administration has selected Google Apps for Government through a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process. This federal agency will be moving all 17,000 employees and contractors from its previous on-premises solution to Google Apps for modern, cloud-based email and collaboration tools.

State and local governments are getting onboard with Google Apps, too. A warm welcome goes out to Panama City, Fla. and Larimer County, Colo.!

This week we’re also welcoming a flock of businesses that have recently “gone Google.” Z Gallerie, Spyder, PlayPlanit.com, Medialocate, Flight Centre and Ray White have all moved to the cloud to help their employees become more productive with tools that save people time and hassles.

I hope these updates help you and your organization get even more from Google Apps. For details and the latest news in this area, check out the Google Apps Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

U.S. General Services Administration is going Google

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterprise Blog)

The U.S. General Services Administration (GSA) today announced its decision to move 17,000 employees and contractors to Google Apps for Government. GSA oversees the business of the U.S. federal government, providing real estate and building management services as well as acquisition and procurement assistance to other federal agencies.

GSA’s decision to switch to Google Apps resulted from a competitive request for proposal (RFP) process that took place over the past six months, during which the agency evaluated multiple proposals for replacing their existing on-premises email system. GSA selected Google partner Unisys as the prime contractor to migrate all employees in 17 locations around the world to an integrated, flexible and robust email and collaboration service in 2011.

By making this switch, GSA will benefit in a number of ways. Modern email and collaboration tools will help make employees more efficient and effective. Google Apps will bring GSA a continual stream of new and innovative features, helping the agency keep pace with advances in technology in the years ahead. And taxpayers will benefit too—by reducing the burden of in-house maintenance and eliminating the need to replace hardware to host its email systems, GSA expects to lower costs by 50 percent over the next five years.

Earlier this year, Google Apps became the first suite of cloud computing email and collaboration applications to receive Federal Information Security Management Act (FISMA) certification, enabling agencies to compare the security features of Google Apps to that of existing systems.

GSA is leading the way in embracing the federal government’s “cloud first” policy, under which agencies should opt for hosted applications when secure, reliable, cost-effective options are available. We are thrilled that GSA has chosen to move to the cloud with Google and look forward to expanding our productive partnership with them.

Posted by Mike Bradshaw, Director, Federal Enterprise team

Ten times more applications for Google Apps customers

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterprise Blog and the Google Small Business Blog)

As customers begin to recognize large productivity gains with Gmail, Google Docs and the rest of Google Apps, they frequently ask when they’ll be able to use services like Google Voice, Reader, Blogger and AdWords with their Google Apps accounts. We’ve steadily added new functionality to Google Apps and recently added support for third-party apps, but we’re thrilled to swing the floodgates of new functionality wide open now. Starting today, customers worldwide can access a full spectrum of services from Google—including more than 60 productivity-boosting applications that extend far beyond any traditional software suite.

Coupled with the ability for administrators to provide different sets of applications to different groups of users, the possibilities for empowering workers in new ways are remarkable. For example, you could equip your marketing team with Picasa Web Albums so they can collect and share photos from customer appreciation events, and let that team publish your company’s blog with Blogger. Services like iGoogle and Alerts, on the other hand, may be broadly useful, and could be enabled for your whole organization.



Existing customers can transition at their own pace over the next couple months to the new infrastructure supporting these applications from the administrative control panel. New customers will automatically have the new infrastructure. The additional services are not covered by the Google Apps SLA or telephone support, but we’ll be watching for feedback how we can make these new applications even more useful.

In tandem with this big improvement, we’re also simplifying the names of the versions of Google Apps. Here’s how we now refer to our line-up:

• Google Apps is our free service geared towards families, entrepreneurs and other groups up to 50 users.
• Google Apps for Business offers 25GB of email storage per user, a 99.9% uptime guarantee, data migration capabilities, advanced management tools, telephone support, added security features and more, all for $50 per user per year.
• Google Apps for Government is FISMA certified and designed with local, state and federal agencies in mind.
• Google Apps for Education offers many benefits of Google Apps for Business, but at no cost to schools, universities and qualifying non-profits.

The team has worked hard to unlock all of this new functionality for our customers, and we think many of these new applications will become indispensable within your organization. To help get you started, each day the Google Enterprise Blog will profile how your organization could put a different application to use. The first post tomorrow will focus on Google Reader, so visit the Enterprise Blog to follow the series.

Posted by Derek Parham, Lead Software Engineer, Google Apps

Editing your Google Docs on the go

(Cross-posted on the Google Docs Blog, Google Enterprise Blog and the Google Mobile Blog)

With Google Docs, we’re always trying to make you more productive—and part of that means making it possible for you to get things done from anywhere, at anytime. That’s why we’re excited that the new documents editor now supports editing on your mobile browser. We’re rolling this out over the next few days.

That means that...

• You can work on that important memo...while on the bus or train to work.
• If you’re behind on a group proposal, but really want to make it to the ball game tonight, your whole team can work on it from the bleacher seats.
• You can take minute-by-minute notes at a concert so you’ll always remember the setlist. And your friends can jealously follow in real-time at home.
• ...and the list goes on!

Take a look at this video to see mobile editing in action:



It’s easy to get started: visit docs.google.com in a browser on a supported device, and select the document you want to edit. Then, when you’re viewing it, press the Edit button to switch to the mobile editor.

In the next few days, we’re rolling this out to English-language users around the world on Android with Froyo (version 2.2) and on iOS devices (version 3.0+) including the iPad. We’ll be adding support for other languages soon. And as before, we also support editing of spreadsheets from your mobile device’s browser.

We hope you enjoy editing your documents on the go—especially when you’re at the game with a hot dog in your other hand.

Posted by Andrew Grieve, Software Engineer

Google Voice for iPhone

(Cross-posted from the Google Voice Blog and on the Google Mobile Blog)

Earlier this year we launched a Google Voice HTML5 web app for iPhone users. Today we’re taking the Google Voice experience on the iPhone to a whole new level with the launch of the official Google Voice for iPhone app.

With this native app, you’ll continue to have access to all the major Google Voice features on your iPhone, like:

• Cheap rates for international calls
• Free text messaging to U.S. numbers
• Voicemail transcription
• Display your Google Voice number as caller ID when making calls

In addition to these benefits, the app provides some features that make using Google Voice on your iPhone a much better experience:

• With push notifications, the app will alert you instantly when you receive a new voicemail or text message
• Most of your calls will be placed via Direct Access Numbers, making them connect just as quickly as regular phone calls

Google Voice for iPhone is available to download from the Apple App Store today. You’ll need an iPhone with iOS 3.1 or later and a valid Google Voice account to use the app. At this time, Google Voice is available in the U.S. only.

Posted by Christian Brunschen, Software Engineer

App Tuesday: Eight new apps for your business

The Google Apps Marketplace helps your business discover and deploy the right web-apps that integrate with Google Apps, reduce IT costs, and eliminate redundant log-ins and data entry. Every App Tuesday, we welcome even more apps that expand the range of solutions available to businesses.

Today, eight more apps join the Apps Marketplace, all with single sign-on convenience and hassle-free access through the universal navigation bar. Most apps have even deeper integrations—read below to learn more.

Embed this presentation on your own site to spread the word about our newest apps

Read more about the apps launching this App Tuesday on the Google Enterprise blog, or go shop the Google Apps Marketplace to find the perfect solutions to help you move further into the cloud.

Posted by Harrison Shih, Associate Product Marketing Manger, Google Apps Marketplace

Passing the torch to the cloud: NYU is going Google

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterprise Blog)

The weather report may predict sun today in New York City, but it’s beginning to look more like a city that’s in the “cloud.” Today, NYU announced that it’s moving to Google Apps for Education, providing cloud-based email and collaboration tools to the entire university community. This announcement comes just weeks after New York State created an initiative to bring Google Apps for Education to their K-12 schools. With students and faculty across New York now using Google Apps, it looks like the Empire State has fully embraced the cloud.

This move to Google Apps will provide more than 60,000 students, staff and faculty at NYU with Google tools like Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Sites and will bring all 18 schools of NYU—including medical, dental and law schools—together on one uniform system. This project is estimated to save the University around $400,000 annually by eliminating the need to purchase, upgrade, and maintain in-house mail servers and software licenses.

Marilyn McMillan, NYU’s Chief Information Officer says the move is “...a win-win: in one stroke, we are able to provide better email services to members of the NYU community, offer a new set of tools for academic collaboration, and achieve savings for the University.”

The community of NYU joins more than 10 million users from thousands of schools across the globe who have gone Google, and we’re proud to welcome them to the family.

To learn more about how you can bring your campus to the cloud, visit www.google.com/a/edu.

Posted by Miriam Schneider, Apps for Education team

Into the cloud: Virgin America goes Google

Today, we’re excited to announce that Virgin America is the latest company to go Google and switch to Google Apps. Over the next two weeks, all of the airline’s 1,700 employees based across North America will be moving their corporate email to Gmail, and collaborating more efficiently using Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Talk. Their migration to Gmail will cut Virgin America’s email system costs by about half on an annual basis, in addition to the long-term storage benefits where the move into the Google cloud will save them over 18 terabytes of space as the airline continue to grow and add employees.

Photos of our skywriting this afternoon

To make it easier for Virgin America make the switch, one of our Google Apps Authorized Resellers, SADA Systems, will be helping them deploy Google Apps, implementing single sign-on user access so that users can use one password to log in to multiple applications, integrating with telephony (voicemail) systems and doing custom email configuration.

We asked Ravi Simhambhatla, Chief Information Officer for Virgin America to share his thoughts about why they decided to go Google:

As the only airline based here in Silicon Valley, our goal has always been to use the best in technology and design to reinvent the air travel experience for the better. We’re eager to bring the latest and greatest tech innovations not only to our guests—but also to our teammates. The transition to a cloud-based email system allows us to save costs and increase the speed and efficiency of our platforms, so we can focus on what we do best: elevating the flying experience. Google answers our data and connectivity needs better than any other system. Google Apps allow us to stay ahead of the competition by remaining flexible and efficient since we can upgrade based on the latest technology, and not be confined by budget or staffing to out-of-date systems. Once you have Google Apps, you always have the most recent version.

As a leading airline innovator, Virgin America has had a history of cloud firsts: in November 2008, Virgin America launched in-flight Internet with a first-ever "air-to-ground" video stream to YouTube Live. In June 2009, we collaborated on the Day in the Cloud Challenge, the first online scavenger hunt to be played both in the air and on the ground, and in December 2009 we teamed up to offer free WiFi to holiday travelers. So naturally, we’re thrilled to welcome Virgin America to the cloud as they join more than 3 million companies that have gone Google. To learn more about Google Apps and the companies that have switched, visit www.google.com/gonegoogle.

Posted by Vivian Leung, Google Apps team

Strike up the band: over 10 million have gone Google with Apps for Education

(Cross-posted on the Google Enterprise Blog)

It was four years ago this month that Google Apps for Education first touched down, right before a pivotal football game between ASU and USC—fatefully enough, two schools that were among the first to move to Google Apps and pave the way for other schools to adopt this “alien technology.”

This week at EDUCAUSE we’re celebrating with these schools and the thousands of others that make up more than 10 million students, staff, faculty and alumni that are actively using Apps for Education on campus. We figured that nothing was more fitting than a tailgate celebration to toast the colleges and universities that have “gone Google.” And of course, it’s not really a party without inviting the marching band.



In the last four years we’ve seen a lot of changes, both to our tools and the general landscape of cloud computing in higher education. According to the 2010 Campus Computing project, nearly 85% of four-year colleges and universities are already using or considering moving to the cloud by offering hosted email to their students. Of those schools that have already made the move, more than 56% of them have gone Google.

As part of this sustained momentum, we’ve seen the number of active Google Apps for Education users double since last fall, with more than two million new users coming on board since May alone; not to mention the emerging growth we’re now seeing in the K-12 space.

Hundreds of schools have made the move to Google Apps just this year, including Gonzaga University, Barnard, Brown University, William and Mary, Villanova University, Georgetown School of Business, Case Western Reserve University, Hawai’i Pacific University, Brandeis University, more than half of the 23 campuses in the California State University system, Morehouse College, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Texas A&M Alumni, University of Tennessee Chattanooga, 13 of the SUNY schools, Pace University and Wilfrid Laurier—to name just a few.

The USC Trojan Marching Band helped us give a spirited cheer to the schools who have gone Google and the progress we’ve seen in the last four years. But like any good commencement address will tell you, this is only the beginning.



Posted by Miriam Schneider, Apps for Education team

Be the next Gone Google ad

A little over a year ago, we began the "Go Google" campaign with just a single billboard in four U.S. cities. In the past year, we've grown from two to three million businesses and more than 30 million users on Google Apps; through the campaign, thousands have shared their Gone Google stories via tweets, photos and submissions to our community map. We've heard from companies across the country and around the world; from large enterprises such as Konica Minolta and leading global food retailer Ahold, to small businesses like Bowery Lane Bicycles in New York and Luna & Larry's Coconut Bliss in Oregon, we're excited to hear how Google Apps has helped your business increase productivity, reduce costs and innovate.

As we kick off the next wave of our global campaign this week in airports and train stations in 11 major cities in nine countries around the globe, we want to use this opportunity to invite the millions of companies and schools using Google Apps to tell us why your organization would like to be featured in our next global Gone Google ad campaign. For this contest, we'll pick up to five companies/schools in each of the following regions: the Americas, EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and Asia Pacific. The winners will be featured in an upcoming outdoor ad campaign in each region early next year.

To participate, tell us your organization's Gone Google story, and create a "sample ad" using our template:


We encourage you to be creative and have fun with your ad! (You may want to check out some of our previous ads for some inspiration.) Once you create your ad, be sure to publish and share it with us. (Bonus points for tweeting it with the #gonegoogle hashtag.) For complete rules and details, visit our contest site. We can't wait to see your ads, and look forwarding to putting your organization's name in lights!

And if you are still thinking about going Google, we encourage you to check out the Go Google cloud calculator to learn more about the benefits of switching to Google Apps.

Posted by Vivian Leung, Google Apps Team