Getting proactive about e-discovery

Tuesday, May 20, 2008 at 9:50 AM

Posted by Bill Kee, Product Marketing

Here at Google Enterprise, one thing we focus on is making the web-based applications that people use at home more suitable for the workplace. This often means providing administrative or specialized security features to meet the specific challenges faced by organizations. One challenge that organizations face is legal discovery of electronically stored information, particularly email. Several factors have conspired to make this process, known as "e-discovery," difficult and costly.

Foremost are the growth in volume of electronically stored information (think at least 1GB of email per employee per year) and changes to rules that guide the discovery process (pdf), which have set new expectations for how companies should treat electronic information during the course of a lawsuit. As a result, many organizations find themselves scrambling to locate and preserve email in response to impending litigation, often spending excessively in the course of doing so. Given the complexity involved, it can cost $1,800 to shepherd a gigabyte of email through the discovery process.

There are things you can do, however, to transform e-discovery from a fire drill into a predictable business process. A good start is to be proactive about email archiving to ensure that a comprehensive and centralized record of all email is maintained and accessible to administrators. Setting policies regarding the retention of email is also a good idea. It's with this in mind that we've included an email archiving application with Google Apps Premier Edition (also available for non-Google Apps customers). It's also useful to understand how email archiving fits into the rest of the e-discovery process; a good framework for approaching this can be found in the Electronic Discovery Reference Model (EDRM).

To learn more about e-discovery, the EDRM, and steps you can take to be proactive, join us for a free webinar we're holding on June 3 with Clearwell Systems, a technology company focusing on e-discovery.

Google innovation across America: Find. Share. Secure.

Thursday, May 15, 2008 at 5:17 PM

Posted by Dave Girouard, VP and General Manager, Google Enterprise

Google is renowned for its innovative approach to business, ours and that of our users. We are our own best case study of a large enterprise operating in the cloud. And every day, more and more companies join us. In fact, to date there are more than 10 million active users on Google Apps, our suite of collaboration tools for business that includes Gmail, Calendar, Docs, and much more.

But simply adopting Google technology is only the first step. A common question we get is, "Now that we are using Google products, how can we take full advantage of them?" Many of you want to know how you can help your employees find, share, and secure information in a way that is both fast and scalable. Oh, and without incurring enormous costs.

So we've decided to visit you in the places where you live. In June alone, we'll be in seven different cities (see details here), with more to be added throughout the rest of the year, for a full day of presentations, demos, and conversation.

In each location, a Google executive will offer a keynote address on how you can scale innovation in your company and how Google technology can help you become more creative, productive, and efficient. Then, in breakout sessions, we will help you take a closer look at Google enterprise search, Google Apps, and Google security and compliance . Finally, you'll be able to get your hands on a range of Google products and services and try them out with a Google expert standing by to answer your questions.

The events are free and open to current Google customers and to prospective customers with at least 500 employees that would like to learn more about how Google innovation can change their businesses. Please go to our registration page to sign up and see the full itinerary. Hope to see you on the road!

Google Web Security for Enterprise now protects roaming users

Thursday, May 08, 2008 at 7:59 AM

Posted by Tim Johnson, Product Marketing Manager

Google Web Security for Enterprise protects organizations of all sizes against web malware attacks in real time and enables the safe, productive use of the web, without incurring hardware, upfront capital, or IT management costs. The product enables organizations to control how employees use the Internet, and provides easy-to-use tools to create, enforce, and monitor the right web policy for your organization. Now, through a new add-on feature, we're extending that security to users wherever they may be working.

Protecting off-network users used to require them to connect via a VPN when they were out of the office — often with mixed results. With this new feature, all off-network users' web traffic is automatically directed to scanning infrastructure to enforce your policies and protect their computers, requiring no action on the part of individuals. It's easy to deploy and users can't tamper with it, ensuring your security and appropriate use policies are always in place.

In this way we hope to help your organization take greater control over its security, bandwidth and web communications. Google Web Security is powered by Postini with technology from ScanSafe, and integrated with Google Apps security and compliance messaging services. It's available in North America and Europe, and you can find out more on our Web Security page.

The platform-agnostic cloud

Tuesday, May 06, 2008 at 10:05 AM

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Lately we've been hearing about more companies letting employees choose their own computers and operating systems, rather than having a one-computer-fits-all policy. Googlers also have this choice, and I recently switched back to a Mac. I used Macs from 5th grade through college, so everything just feels a little more natural again.

Cloud computing is one trend that's enabling mixed operating system environments at businesses and schools. With technologies like Google Apps, applications run just the same on Windows, OS X and Linux distributions like Red Hat or Ubuntu. Everyone can use the platform they're most comfortable with, without causing all kinds of compatibility headaches.

Being platform-agnostic also means working on mobile devices. For example, you might have read our recent announcement that it just got easier to use Google Apps on the iPhone and iPod Touch in 17 different languages. Bookmark http://www.google.com/m/a/your-domain.com from your iPhone's browser, and you'll have streamlined access to Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Docs on the go. (Be sure to replace 'your-domain.com' with your actual domain name.)

Helping small business navigate government

Friday, May 02, 2008 at 7:25 AM

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Enterprise - Government Products

We just published a case study on the Business Gateway program, a US government initiative that provides a one-stop source of information to help small businesses navigate the government.

This project is noteworthy for a number of reasons. First, the collaboration. Not only does the Business Gateway program involve 21 different federal agencies, but it also provides small businesses access -- with a single query on business.gov -- to resources from thousands of state and local government agencies across the country, using Google Custom Search.

Second, the Business Gateway folks understand that "all business is local" -- to paraphrase Tip O'Neill. Much of what small business owners need to know is specific to where they're located. This website knows when a search includes a geographic term and uses that information to point the user in the right direction. For example, search business.gov for "small business development center, Chicago, IL". Not only does business.gov provide search results from the city of Chicago and Cook County, but it also displays an interactive Google Map to let the small business owner pinpoint available resources in the Chicago area and the rest of the state.

We applaud the folks at the Business Gateway program for giving small businesses such a helpful tool.