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Editor's note: This is the second in a series of posts on new apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every couple weeks or so. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series.

Businesses that use Google Apps not only get access to Google's applications, they also get easy access to some of the best business apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace. These Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy, and integrate with Google Apps "out of the box", making it even easier for businesses to run more of their systems in the cloud. You can learn more about the Marketplace and watch a short video on how it works here.


Checkfront - Online Booking
Checkfront is a powerful booking platform that allows businesses to manage their inventories online, centralize reservations, and process payments.
  • Easily integrated into popular CMS products
  • Multi-currency, multi-gateway payment processing
  • Fully managed, secure Saas solution


LucidChart - Collaborative Diagramming
LucidChart provides collaborative online diagramming without the need for Flash, Silverlight, or any other
browser plugin. Draw flow charts, org charts, wireframes, site maps,
and more.
  • Easy, slick user interface
  • Seamless, real-time collaboration
  • No Flash plugin required


GQueues - Task Management
A full-featured task manager for Google Apps with tagging,assignments, recurring tasks, reminders, calendar integration,subtasks, mobile access and real-time collaboration.



BatchBook - Social CRM
BatchBook is a lightweight but powerful CRM that allows you to easily organize contacts, monitor social networks and track leads and deals.

  • Integrates with other small business web apps
  • Tracks contacts, communications and tasks
  • Highly customizable; custom fields and reporting


VerticalResponse - Email Marketing
Create, send and track email campaigns, direct mail postcards and online surveys -- no technical expertise required! Take a 30-day test drive and send 200 emails for free.
  • Create & send marketing messages in minutes
  • Build mailing lists using your Google contacts
  • Get real-time stats & Google Analytics tracking

Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Marketplace team


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Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Mark Nichoson, Product Manager at Adobe Community Help.

Back in 2008, Adobe began to use the power of Google Site Search to “plug the whole community brain trust right into the Creative Suite,” as we liked to say.

Now with the launch of Adobe® Creative Suite 5, we’ve taken that brain trust to a whole new level with the introduction of our new Community Help application. It’s an Adobe AIR®-based companion that’s automatically installed as part of any new Adobe CS5 product.

Launched directly from the Help menu of any CS5 product, the Community Help application enables customers to:
  • find fast answers with powerful new search options that let them focus results to just Adobe content, community content, developer resources, or even code samples
  • download core Adobe Help and language reference content for offline viewing (thanks to the Adobe AIR runtime)
  • see what the community thinks is the best, most valuable content via ratings and comments
  • share their expertise with others and find out what experts have to say about using their favorite Adobe product
Google Site Search: integration and innovation
Under the hood of the Community Help app lies our Google Site Search engine. This search engine searches across about 3000 sites – content such as product Help, language references, Tech Notes, Developer Connection articles, and Adobe TV videos as well as the best online content from the Adobe community. Content is chosen by experts at Adobe and in the design and developer communities, meaning customers find the answers they need faster.

Thanks to the robust Google Site Search APIs, the development team was not only able to easily integrate search results but also create unique innovations such as our new Code Search functionality. Formerly known as Blueprint, this new search option allows Adobe Flash® and Flex developers to search for relevant code samples so that they can write better code, faster.

A new definition of Help
By combining the best community content with the definitive reference that customers traditionally expect from Adobe, Community Help allows us to expand the definition what help means. Now users can tap into an entire ecosystem of content — one that can dynamically adjust to changing user needs and provide a much richer set of resources over the lifetime of the product.

Community Help can also be used as a standalone application. To give it a try, you can download it from adobe.com.

Mark Nichoson, Product Manager at Adobe Community Help

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If you’d like to learn more about what Google Site Search can do for your website, join us for this upcoming webinar:

Thursday, May 13, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT, 2:00 p.m. EDT, GMT 07:00
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Editor's Note: Tom Hippensteel is the Vice President for LiquidConcrete, a medium-sized Seattle-based manufacturer of high-performance concrete coatings and flooring systems for industrial and transportation markets. LiquidConcrete relies on Google Apps for email, calendar, and document collaboration, and on Smartsheet, an integrated app from the Google Apps Marketplace, for online project management, general work management, and team collaboration.

Smartsheet's integration with Google Apps enables businesses to transform the work they routinely track in spreadsheets into a complete solution for managing business operations. Smartsheet currently offers three versions in the Google Apps Marketplace: online project management, sales pipeline management, and crowdsourcing.

Below, Tom explains a bit about LiquidConcrete and the steps they took to get the entire business – from the front office to the warehouse – to operate in the cloud.

To learn more about LiquidConcrete's success with Google Apps and Smartsheet, please join us for a webinar on Tuesday, May 11 at 11:00 a.m. PDT.

We win business because we have great products, and because we run a lean operation that differentiates on quick turnaround of custom jobs with high levels of customer service. Everything about our operation is focused on efficiency, so we’re always looking for software solutions that fit that model. We’ve had successes and setbacks in getting our operations into the cloud in a way that works for all of our employees. We needed tools that "just work the way that we work."

We use Quickbooks for accounting and have had great success with Google Apps for email and calendar, but had trouble finding a tool that combined the ease of use, power and flexibility we needed to manage the rest of our operations. We tried various CRM, ERP and manufacturing solutions but they made us work in a certain way and were difficult to use – people just went back to how they were doing it before.

Then we found Smartsheet, a cloud-based project management tool. It was already integrated with Google Apps, and as we began deploying it more broadly, made Google Docs much more useful. Smartsheet and Google Apps are the only tools that have been readily adopted across our whole company, all the way out to the guys on the warehouse floor.

Here’s how we use them:

Project & task management We started tracking various projects and shared task lists in Smartsheet. User adoption was not a problem and the ability to launch Smartsheet from Gmail (the first app we open every morning) might sound simple, but it was a big win. Most of us check into Smartsheet dozens of times per day and we all have it added to the first screen on our iPhones.

Order-to-ship process We then realized that Smartsheet and Gmail could help with our order entry and shipping process. It was easy to set up and quickly adopted by reps on the phones with customers as well as people in the factory and at the warehouse. Here's our new streamlined process:

1. New orders are entered in a Smartsheet with the packing slip attached to the order and special instructions added as discussion notes


2. The people at the warehouse are automatically notified by Smartsheet (via Gmail on their iPhone) that a new order needs to be shipped


3. They access Smartsheet from their email, download the packing slip and prep the order

4. Once the order is shipped, they fill out the "tracking number" field for that order in Smartsheet and change the dropdown status from "waiting" to "shipped"

5. The right people receive a Smartsheet notification that a new order has been shipped with the tracking number available


Inventory tracking We also track raw and finished goods inventory in Smartsheet, giving salespeople instant access to the latest information online or via their iPhone.

Sales pipeline We have recently started using Smartsheet to manage the sales pipeline. It's been great to have all of our client projects and potential leads tracked in one place with their relevant documents attached to their record. We have instant status updates, forecast amounts and recent call notes at our fingertips and use reminders to make sure follow up happens.

Specification document management Since we are able to easily attach Google Docs to our Smartsheets, we decided to go forward with converting hundreds of specification documents into Google Docs. Google Docs gives us collaborative writing and review to get the specifications right, and Smartsheet organizes them conveniently right inside the project workflow. Accessing files directly from our sales, inventory and order processing sheets has been a big productivity win.


Smartsheet and Google Apps are changing the way our company communicates. Our CEO loves it because he gets an update on order status or a key customer in real time. Our reps love it because they can quickly pull up an order while on the phone with a customer and give an instant answer without waiting for someone at the warehouse to call them back. This saves us a tremendous amount of time.

The two keys for us are ease of use and the flexibility, and we've yet to come across a type of work that can't be managed in Smartsheet and Google Apps. We also love that it's a fraction of the cost of many of the other solutions we've looked at and we don't have to hire expensive consultants to customize it.

Bottom line is that we serve our customers better than bigger competitors because we're nimble and agile, and we feel the same way about Smartsheet and Google Apps.

Tom Hippensteel, VP, LiquidConcrete

Join Tom and the Smartsheet team for a webinar to learn more about this customer success story. This online discussion will include a question and answer session.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT / 6:00 p.m. GMT

You can watch it at work here:


To learn more about Smartsheet's experience selling their app in the Google Apps Marketplace, please read their post on the Google Apps Developer Blog. To learn even more about Smartsheet, check out their Google Apps Marketplace listing.

Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Marketplace team


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If you're a Google Apps user, you're already running part of your business in the cloud, and realizing the benefits around speed, efficiency and collaboration it brings. The Google Apps Marketplace enables those same cloud benefits for your entire business, beyond messaging and collaboration.

Since our launch last month, we’ve been pleased by the great success our customers have seen with Marketplace apps, and by the constant stream of innovation coming from our Marketplace vendors.

Next Wednesday, April 28, we're hosting a webinar about extending Google Apps with web-based applications from the Google Apps Marketplace. You’ll get a general overview of the marketplace, see a demo of how to find and install apps, and learn about applications – many of which are free – that you can start using right now for your business. Please join us!

Wednesday, April 28, 2010
11:00 a.m. PDT / 2:00 p.m. EDT / 7:00 p.m. GMT

Posted by Chris Kelly, the Google Apps Marketplace team
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Editor's note: This is the first in a series of posts on new apps in the Google Apps Marketplace that have caught our eye here at Google. We’ll do this every couple weeks or so. Look for the label "marketplace highlights" and subscribe to the series.

Businesses that use Google Apps not only get access to Google's applications, they also get easy access to some of the best business apps on the web through the Google Apps Marketplace.  These Marketplace apps are easy to try and buy, and integrate with Google Apps "out of the box", making it even easier for businesses to run more of their systems in the cloud.

Today’s update includes apps for creating diagrams and charts, CRM and project management, accounting, and personal scheduling. Google Apps admins can easily deploy these apps to users in their domain via the Google Apps Marketplace. Many of the apps below are free or offer free trials. You can learn more about the Marketplace and watch a short video on how it works here.

Creately - Online Diagramming and Design

Creately is an online diagramming application built for project teams. Create wireframes, flowcharts, UML diagrams, Network Diagrams, mind maps and more diagram types with ease.
  • Create ANY diagram: flowcharts, UI Mockups to UML
  • Powerful project based collaboration
  • Full featured, intuitive interface
Insightly - CRM and Project Management

Insightly is a CRM and Project Management package designed specially for Google Apps. Track leads, proposals, opportunities, projects and manage files, all through an easy to use interface.
  • Track leads, proposals, opportunities and projects
  • Full history of customer interaction
  • Central shared contact list
Rhino Accounting - Accounting

Rhino Accounting is online accounting software for small businesses. It is totally integrated with Google Apps so you don't need to duplicate your contacts or have yet another login.
  • Always free
  • Full double-entry bookkeeping
  • Easily email invoices
Teambox - Project Collaboration

Collaborate seamlessly with your team Teambox is the better way of managing projects and getting things done. Its Twitter-like approach needs no training Take back control of your projects now
  • Manage tasks, files and conversations
  • Easy to use and fun interface
  • Inbox-driven collaboration
Tungle.me - Personal Scheduling

Tungle.me is a personal scheduling application, which lets businesspeople publish availability, accept appointment requests, and plan meetings - making scheduling meetings easy.
  • Easily schedule meetings with anyone, anytime
  • No more double bookings, or time zone mishaps
  • End the back and forth of finding a time to meet
There are lots of other apps for Google Apps in the Marketplace that can help your business and users become more productive. If you're an Apps user, let your admin know about these great tools for your organization. If you'd like to learn more about the Marketplace, please come to our webinar next week, 11:00am PDT on April 28.

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise
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Editor’s note: Every now and then we like to showcase innovative uses of Google Maps and Earth. Today we’re excited to welcome Don Rescigno, who is the Director of Marketing for NYSTROM Herff Jones Education, which has implemented the Google Earth and Maps API into educational software to make learning more interactive.

School Maps & Globes 2.0
NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division & Roundarch use the Google Earth API to reinvent the classroom map and globe

Technology is changing the face of what today’s classrooms look like. In the United States alone, roughly one out of every five classrooms has an interactive whiteboard, like this:

These are steadily replacing the chalkboard and leave little to no room for traditional wall maps and charts.

As the leading producer of maps and globes for schools, NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division saw an opportunity to deliver geographic information to educators – a market we’ve served more more than 100 years – through innovative technology. We partnered with Roundarch, a leader in digital design and technology, to help. Ultimately, we chose to use the Google Earth API to power our educational content and reinvent our products in ways never before possible. The result of our work is StrataLogica(TM).

Released late September 2009, StrataLogica is a revolutionary web-based product that delivers layers of age-appropriate, curriculum-based content for use in the classroom, school library, or at home. To meet grade-level curriculum standards, Nystrom mapped the world in many ways to illustrate various themes including physical features, political divisions, land cover, elevation, and U.S. and World history.

StrataLogica geo-references the content and presents it wrapped on the 3-D Earth allowing users to navigate and interact with our multi-layered world beyond the scope of traditional maps and globes.

Using the StrataLogica dual-map viewer, teachers and students can compare and contrast a variety of topics side by side. They can examine “then and now” by comparing, say, a World War II history map with a current political view (see image) of the same place.

Students can consider why people live where they do by creating side-by-side mash-ups of population, rainfall, and land use. They can also take advantage of Google Earth’s 3-D imagery by zooming down to satellite view to explore terrain or cities and communities around the world while keeping one globe view locked to provide context.

With the intuitive tool bar built on top of the API teachers and students can interact in numerous ways with content. They can add their own placemark pop-ups and include explanatory text, videos, or photos. They can use a ruler tool to measure distance. They can add their own text labels or drop in symbols to highlight land use, transportation, weather, and more. Each user can save this information to his or her account.

Nystrom and Roundarch have recently announced the addition of new StrataLogica features and functions that include collaboration, sharing, projects, and presentations. With these new capabilities students and teachers can work together to map curriculum content—exploration routes, famous battles, immigration patterns—in this online environment so learning to continue outside the confines of the classroom.

It’s our belief that with the release of StrataLogica, Nystrom is redefining the way schools will think about and provide this fundamental, relevant content. Today’s students are so technically savvy – they deserve resources that will feed their appetite for information while improving their educational lives. Though it was introduced only months ago, StrataLogica is already being adopted by schools and districts around the country. The overwhelming response has been that it inspires teachers and students in an entirely new way.

We invite you to see videos of StrataLogica in action and encourage educators to get a free trial at www.stratalogica.com. You can also follow Nystrom’s StrataLogica on Twitter at twitter.com/stratalogica.

Don Rescigno, Director of Marketing
NYSTROM Herff Jones Education Division

Representatives from both Nystrom and Roundarch will be participating at the annual Google I/O Conference this May in San Francisco, California.

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps team





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Editor's Note: Today’s guest blogger is Jim McNelis, co-founder of Dito, a Google Apps Authorized Reseller and vendor in the Google Apps Marketplace.

Did you know that a little over 100 years ago, before the electrical grid existed, businesses had their own power plants to generate electricity?

As Nicolas Carr points out in his book, The Big Switch, factories used to produce their own electricity and manage those huge generators themselves, rather than outsource to a power company. So not only did companies need to be an expert at manufacturing thing-a-ma-jigs, they also needed to understand and manage their own power plant.

Well, my friends, the cloud is the electrical grid and your in-house server is your power plant.

The cloud has become a viable alternative to expensive, on-site hardware that needs constant tender love and care to stay current. Stop staffing IT to keep your systems from breaking. Instead, enable your IT staff to work on new and innovative initiatives that will drive your business forward by freeing them from the chains of the on-site server.

I've been excited about Google Apps since the day I discovered the service. I was an early Gmail beta tester, and, like many, have been faithful to the awesome service since 2004. When I saw there was such thing as Gmail for your business, I thought to myself, "This is innovative. This is going to change things." Three years later and Google Apps is changing things. It's a lot of fun to participate in a paradigm shift as a reseller, rather than standing by and watching it happen.

My brother Dan and I started Dito in 2007 in order to help small and medium businesses transition to the cloud. Even back then, before the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program existed, we were providing services around Google Apps. When we were invited to take part in the reseller pilot program, accepting the offer was a logical progression for our business.

Joining the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program has been a great experience for Dito all around. We've received extensive training, guidance and support from a variety of highly skilled and knowledgeable Google folks. Today, with a growing team of subject matter and Six Sigma experts, Google Apps trainers, and developers, we're able to perform to the high standard of service that our customers have come to expect. And the team is as passionate about Google Apps as I am. As users ourselves, we "dogfood" all new Google Apps features, growing our knowledge of the product and improving our own business processes.

Almost everyday, Dito helps a new customer move from a legacy system into Google Apps. Why are most of them moving? Businesses are moving to Google Apps Premier Edition for many different reasons, but there are a few that resonate across the board: cost, usability, and innovation. Put simply, businesses want to cut current costs while providing employees with a service that is easy to use and is constantly improving. Google Apps fits that bill.

When people ask where we see Dito in the future, I like to use the analogy that we are strapped to a rocket ship (Google Apps) that is taking off into the stratosphere, and we are screaming "yeeehaa" the whole way. We are just really excited about what we do. Dito is committed to providing the best services and solutions for businesses and organizations using Google Apps for years to come. We will continue to evolve with Google Apps and develop custom solutions, like Dito Directory that is available in the new Google Apps Marketplace, that fit the needs of the Google Apps user base.


Find reseller case studies and learn more about the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program.

Posted by Jeff Ragusa, Google Apps Channel team
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Hot on the heels of our Google Apps Marketplace release, we're pleased to announce today a new YouTube channel, youtube.com/appsmarketplace.

The Apps Marketplace YouTube channel showcases videos from Marketplace vendors. Ranging from funny to informative, from cartoons to screencasts, these videos are meant to convey the benefits of extending Google Apps with integrated apps that work seamlessly with Gmail, Calendar, Docs and more. We're happy to already have more than a dozen videos in the channel and over 60 integrated app vendors in the Marketplace, and look forward to more great things as the Marketplace grows.

Please enjoy these examples of our Marketplace vendors' hard work. Thanks for the videos, guys!

Aviary:


ScheduleOnce:


MindMeister:


To get started using great apps like these, visit google.com/appsmarketplace, or watch our own short demo video explaining how the Marketplace works.

Are you a developer? Visit developer.googleapps.com and start building.

Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Marketplace team
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Editor's note: Ryan Goodman is the founder of Centigon Solutions, Inc. and is an expert in business intelligence dashboards with BusinessObjects Xcelsius. Using Google Maps API Premier, Centigon has created a dashboard application to help users better visualize complex data from SAP BusinessObjects. With hundreds of succesful dashboard projects under his belt, he continues to innovate in applying geographic analysis for performance management dashboards using Google Maps Premier.

As co-author of "Crystal Reports 2008 the Official Guide," and a frequent contributor to trade publications, Ryan continues to push the envelope for what's possible with dashboards and Xcelsius on his personal blog: www.ryangoodman.net/blog.

Enterprise organizations that utilize Business Intelligence dashboard technologies require flexible mapping solutions to meet a range of geo-analysis requirements for performance management dashboards. With numerous potential use cases for bringing maps into dashboards, customers have long struggled between static graphics or traditional GIS solutions.

While static images don't provide enough flexibility to address all business needs, feature-rich GIS solutions are sometimes more than most business users need. To facilitate flexibility and ease-of-use for dashboard end users, Centigon Solutions has helped Google Maps become a rich enterprise visualization tool with GMaps Plugin for Xcelsius 2008. GMaps Plugin empowers developers to deploy Google Maps API Premier enabled dashboards to drive geographic visualization of performance management metrics without without writing a single line of code.

Centigon Solutions has bridged the gap between SAP BusinessObjects' on-premise dashboard technology and Google Maps API Premier service, making geo-analysis accessible at any level of an organization, and in any industry. Using a simple property sheet, dashboard developers can align geographic dimensions with performance measures and then deploy a fluent Google Maps experience to business users. From global financial metrics to city-level risk analytics, both technical and non-technical users can leverage GMaps Plugin's seamless integration with Google Maps API Premier to create compelling analysis – in minutes.

Organizations that rely on on-premise, on-demand solutions require easy methods for analyzing and communicating information queried from these systems. In the dashboard shown below, an analyst required a mashup of Salesforce.com campaign/lead data and enterprise financial data to measure campaign effectiveness. GMaps Plugin provided the location intelligence required to quickly digest a large volume of information.



The example shows how multiple marketing campaigns across the United States were created and tracked through Salesforce.com. Powered by GMaps Plugin, Google Maps API Premier, and Force.com Integration (hosted on Google App Engine), this dashboard empowers marketing professionals to view and drill into each campaign and visually digest campaign results. The resulting analysis provided a visual proximity of attendees and their response rate.

From this information, the user can make informed decisions to what regions should receive priority for future campaigns. This new visibility into lead data provides a new perspective for a marketing analysts to make more informed decisions through guided analysis.

While traditional reporting solutions can present drillable tabular data, the graphical and spatial analysis gained with a Google Maps API Premier enabled dashboard increases the speed, depth, and efficiency of data analysis. By mobilizing Google Maps API Premier for enterprise performance management reporting and dashboards, Centigon Solutions improves the way business decision makers can interpret key information. Visit our website to learn more about GMaps Plugin and the Google Maps API Premier case study page for more success stories.


About Centigon Solutions: Centigon Solutions Inc. couples business insight with technical expertise to deliver quality business intelligence dashboard solutions. Centigon Solutions Inc. is strategically focused on creating interactive visualization technology for developers and business users. As thought leaders in dashboard and Web 2.0 technologies for the enterprise, Centigon Solutions is also recognized as the premier developer of Xcelsius® add-on solutions, including GMaps Plugin.

Posted by Natasha Wyatt, Google Earth and Maps Enterprise team


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This evening, we were joined by more than 50 participating companies to announce the launch of the Google Apps Marketplace, a new online storefront that enables millions of Google Apps administrators to discover and purchase integrated third party cloud applications and deploy them to their domains.

Adding an application from the Marketplace to your domain is simple - it only takes four clicks. Applications can then be easily managed from your domain's control panel and accessed by users through the same links as the Google Apps suite.

1) Click "Add it now"
2) Agree to the vendor's Terms of Service
3) Grant access to the data that the app is requesting (ome apps require data access, some don't...so only grant access to apps you trust)
4) Turn it on and start enjoying your increased productivity

Applications listed in the Google Apps Marketplace integrate with Google Apps using open protocols. These integrations improve the efficiency of your businesses by allowing users to share data and collaborate on projects as well as connect to users' daily workflows in apps like Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Contacts.



This integrated app experience is available in the Marketplace today for users of Google Apps Premier, Standard and Education Editions thanks to the efforts of folks like Intuit and Atlassian, and others who are committed to join, including NetSuite and Successfactors. We are honored to work with the more than 50 partners listed below:


The Google Apps Marketplace gives software vendors access to a rapidly growing Google Apps customer base of 25 million users from 2 million businesses and universities. By embracing open standards like OpenID and OAuth, and by giving software vendors freedom of choice for both billing arrangement and hosting platform, Google makes it easy to build apps for the Google Apps Marketplace.

For a lot more detail on what this means for developers and ISVs, check out our posts on the new Google Apps Developer Blog and the Google Code Blog.

We look forward to seeing the ways in which companies leverage the applications currently in the Google Apps Marketplace in addition to the apps to come in the future. In fact, we'll be exploring these topics further at Google I/O on May 19-20 in San Francisco. We hope you'll join us!

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead, Google Enterprise team
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The Google Developer team will be live streaming an important announcement about Google Apps this evening. Tune in on the Google Developers YouTube channel tonight at 6:00 p.m. PST to watch. Enjoy the show!

Posted by Chris Kelly, Google Apps Developer Marketing team
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When we launched the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program a year ago, a number of partners around the world were already actively helping customers of all sizes reduce IT costs and complexity while giving users the productivity tools they wanted – Gmail, Google Calendar, and more. Since then, millions of businesses have gone Google – and our resellers, too, have gained momentum. With nearly 1,000 Google Apps Authorized Resellers from more than 50 countries now building successful Google Apps practices, we celebrate our partners' progress over the last year and look forward to them continuing to drive customer success with Google Apps in the years to come.
In a recent mark of this progress, the MSPmentor 100 Report for 2010, which ranks top managed service providers worldwide, reports that already 22% of these top MSPs are now promoting Google Apps to their clients.
Our resellers represent a wide range of firms who assist businesses in adopting, leveraging, and extending Google Apps – from global systems integrators to smaller, specialized IT service providers. Acting as trusted advisors, these solution providers work to serve their clients' unique business needs and to improve user productivity via Google Apps at lower costs and with greater reliability.
In our first year, we launched some important tools to help our partners better serve customers, including our online Reseller Console for automated ordering, provisioning, and management of their Google Apps clients. Our Solution Providers resource site provides a full range of marketing, sales, and product information, while we also instituted a series of online webinars and live training sessions in Google offices around the world.
Conversations with channel firms at events hosted by Everything Channel, CompTIA, ConnectWise, and SMB Nation reinforced our belief that customer needs are well served when resellers act as the primary contact for provisioning, deployment, billing, and ongoing consulting and support.
We're especially excited about the relationships we've built with our partners over this first year. Some highlights include (in alphabetical order):
• Appirio and Genentech (large enterprise): Appirio, a cloud solution provider, migrated 15,000 Genentech users from a variety of legacy systems such as Apple Mail, Exchange 2003, Sendmail MStore, and Thunderbird. Appirio also provided a range of value-added services including integration with new systems such as Magic Meeting Marker, end user training, and on-site support.
• Cloudreach and Small World Financial Services: Cloudreach, a UK-based reseller, successfully migrated Small World Financial Services, a family of retail financial services businesses that operates worldwide, from their legacy Microsoft Exchange and Kerio environment to Google Apps. In total, 500 users across 9 countries were migrated resulting in cost savings in excess of 75% annually against their legacy software license. Here's more:

• Cloud Sherpas and Lincoln Property (mid-market): Cloud Sherpas, cloud computing systems integrator and application developer, assisted Lincoln Property with the configuration, implementation, change management and deployment support around their move to Google Apps. In addition to successfully migrating GroupWise mail and contacts data for 950 users, they implemented SherpaTools, a free app from Cloud Sherpas that provides additional IT management functions for admins and new features for employees.
• Sheepdog and Evisu (small business): Sheepdog successfully migrated Evisu off of Microsoft Exchange 2003 in less than two weeks, allowing the company to avoid its renewal deadline. They also provided comprehensive Gmail and Calendar training for all users and continue to offer support as Evisu adds new users to Google Apps.
We recently kicked off our second year by hosting our first Google Apps Partner Advisory Board here at Google in Mountain View. Our partners provided valuable input on the best ways to continue to enrich our program. In 2010, we look forward to strengthening our reseller relationships and finding new ways to help our partners build sustainable, profitable cloud computing businesses.
If your firm is interested in Google Apps reselling and services, we invite you to learn more about the Google Apps Authorized Reseller Program and join this growing movement.

Posted by Stephen Cho, Director, Google Apps Channels
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Editor's note: Don Dodge is a Google Developer Advocate helping developers build new applications on Google platforms and technologies. Don has been a startup evangelist at Microsoft and is also a veteran of five start-ups including Forte Software, AltaVista, Napster, Bowstreet, and Groove Networks.

You can follow the Developer team's updates on Twitter, too – @googleappsdev – and, while you're at it, stay tuned to updates from the Google enterprise team at @googleatwork.

We've just launched have a new blog, Google Apps Developer Blog, for developers interested in building applications that leverage Google Apps. This blog will cover topics of interest to Google Apps developers building applications on top of Google Apps, integrating with them or utilizing the APIs.

Some of our topics and resources will include:

• code snippets and samples
• reviews of customer integration and deployment cases
• interviews with developers on best practices for developing in Apps
• voting on most-requested developer extensions in Apps
• discussion of OAuth roadmap
• references to OpenID
• smart ways to do logging (and analysis/reporting) in AppEngine, etc.
• storing JSON in AppEngine

Watch this blog for announcements of developer events, DevFests, Google I/O updates, product announcements, links to other Google developer related content and case studies on actual integration, implementation and deployments.

Also, don't forget to register for Google I/O, which is May 19-20, 2010 in San Francisco. Google I/O will feature 80 sessions, more than 3,000 developers, and over 100 demonstrations from developers showcasing their technologies. You'll be able to talk shop with engineers building the next generation of web, mobile, and enterprise applications. Last year's I/O sold out before the start of the conference, so we encourage you to sign up soon.

We want your feedback! Ask questions, suggest topics, and even submit your own stories for possible inclusion in the Google Apps Developer Blog. ContactGADBeditor @ google if you have a story for submission, or story suggestion. Comments will be enabled on this blog, and we hope you'll join the discussion.

Thanks,

Don Dodge
Developer Advocate
Developer Relations Team

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead
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This year's Google I/O will play host to a number of sessions and events aimed specifically at helping Software as a Service companies integrate with and monetize Google Apps, including:
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We are planning several more sessions that we'll be announcing in the coming weeks that you won't want to miss. We'll also be hosting a mixer event just for the enterprise developer community that'll take place just before the After Hours party at I/O.

Google I/O is our biggest developer event of the year, and it's also the best chance you'll get to learn about the technologies that can help you build a thriving business extending Google Apps. We hope you'll register today!

Posted by Scott McMullan, Google Apps Partner Lead
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Since we launched the Google Sites Data API last fall, we've heard great feedback from businesses and schools using the API to update sites from 3rd party applications, migrate data from legacy workspace solutions into Google Sites and more.

Today, we're releasing several improvements to the API: the abilities to list a user's sites, create new sites, copy existing sites, and manage sharing permissions. You can read more about these updates to the Google Sites Data API on the Google Code Blog.

Posted by Jeremy Milo, Google Apps Marketing Manager

Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.
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We're happy to announce that we've integrated the Google Earth API into Maps API Premier, adding easy multiple domain and SSL support, enterprise technical support, and a more expansive license to enable commercial use or sale of a product that embeds Earth API or to use it in a site that isn't publicly accessible. With this news, Earth API joins the current family of Maps API Premier services including the Javascript Maps API v2, Maps API for Flash, Static Maps API, StreetView API, and geocoding service, as explained today in the Google Maps API Premier Developer's Guide.

A number of developers have already created amazing products leveraging the Earth API platform in the Maps API Premier suite. Earth Knowledge's Earth API implementation shows how:




Click on the screenshot (you may be prompted to add the Google Earth Plugin, and then "refresh" to view) to see how it powerfully visualizes all of the critical 3D data an emergency responder would need to know about the recent catastrophic earthquake in Haiti.

Other examples include StrataLogica™ , Nystrom's great education application, which brings a favorite teaching tool – the globe – to the 21st century. And, in these climate-conscious times, Space Time Insight enables utilities to visualize critical streams of data using the Earth API from smart grid data to current wind conditions.

One more thing: we're also announcing full HTTPS support in the Premier version of the Maps API for Flash. This addition delivers the added security of HTTPS while still providing a friendly user experience that's free of warning pop-ups. This is important news for customers who are creating applications with the Maps API for Flash but who need the security of HTTPS.

Learn how to work with this functionality here, and (if you're already a Premier customer) make sure you contact Enterprise Support with your client ID to have them enable SSL.

Posted by Daniel Chu, Product Manager, Enterprise Maps & Earth team
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As you may have heard from our announcement yesterday, registration for Google I/O is now open! This year's Google I/O will focus on building the next generation of applications in the cloud, using Google products like App Engine, Google Web Toolkit, and Google APIs, with particular emphasis on Android, Chrome, and Enterprise.

Here are just a couple of Enterprise sessions that are already listed on the I/O website (many more are in the works!):

We'll be adding much more Enterprise (and Google Apps) content to the I/O website over the next couple of months. For updates on new content, follow @googleio on Twitter.

Today's registration opens with an early bird rate of $400, which applies through April 16 ($500 after April 16). Last year's I/O sold out before the start of the conference, so we encourage you to sign up in advance.

Google I/O
May 19-20, 2010
Moscone West, San Francisco

To learn more and sign up, visit code.google.com/io.

We hope to see you in May!

Posted by Joyce Sohn, Google Developer team
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Editor's note: George Kroner is a Developer Relations Engineer for Blackboard, a company that focuses on transforming and improving the educational experience at over 5,000 institutions worldwide. Through the work of Blackboard’s community of over 1,000 educational tool developers, George sees many opportunities where Blackboard’s and Google’s open platforms can be paired together to provide better and more productive teaching and learning experiences.

Thanks to George for sharing these outlooks.

Technology has the potential to transform the educational experience and to connect students, instructors, and researchers in new ways. We think it's critical for schools and institutions to expose learners to these tools and practices to impart information literacy skills required to succeed in their careers – as students and beyond.

Sharing a strong belief in the power and possibility of open platforms, Google and Blackboard have recently teamed up to combine our platforms, and we wanted to share a few powerful examples of these integrations with you here.

Enhancing collaboration in the classroom. Earlier this summer, Northwestern University took the lead on developing a way to facilitate classroom activities by letting instructors embed Google documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and calendars into Blackboard course sites. Individuals enrolled in Blackboard courses are automatically added as collaborators to these documents, and single sign-on capabilities allow documents to be accessed without logging in twice.

A recent student newspaper article details how these new capabilities are being used in courses ranging from foreign language to world history enabling new models of academic collaboration and assessment. What Northwestern has accomplished exemplifies one of the best recent examples of tying together the unique capabilities of Google Apps for Education and Blackboard Learn.

Now, more than ten different institutions, Google, and Blackboard meet on bi-weekly calls to regularly discuss the future of the Bboogle project. Northwestern has also made this Blackboard plugin available through an open source educational tool community called OSCELOT for other clients to download and contribute back to.

Enabling coordinated collaboration. As part of a class project at Penn State University, a team of students examined ways to improve their online learning experience by integrating Blackboard with other systems. After some analysis, their top recommendation was to develop a solution that combined events from their multiple school-related and personal calendars into a single location.

By integrating with Google Calendar, they were able to create a Blackboard plugin that combines events from Google Calendar with academic course schedules, assignment due-dates, and group meeting times from Blackboard. Their plugin was also made available as an open source project at the end of the semester. More details, including user documentation, are available through OSCELOT at this link.

Connecting researchers where they teach. The London International Development Center was formed to connect researchers from the University of London's six Bloomsbury Colleges. Its mission is to find ways to solve complex problems relating to international development by bringing together scientists from interdisciplinary backgrounds. By creating a Google Spreadsheet that integrates behind the scenes with the familiar Blackboard user experience, the LIDC provided a way for researchers to search and connect with each other by name, college, and research interest.

Facilitating new ways to communicate. Google Wave represents a new way to approach group collaboration and communication, and thus the potential for impacting education using such a tool is significant. Imagine creating a course assignment within Blackboard that triggers a contextualized Wave of thought and conversation that can react to changes in course content within the LMS and relay thoughts and comments from subject matter experts around the world back into an assessable course discussion forum or blog.

Today we invite you to join a discussion of how you think Wave should be used to enhance educational experiences. Log into Wave and click this link to post your thoughts, then see your comments show up within the discussion forum in this Blackboard course.

The examples listed above are just the beginning of what's possible when combining the power of the Blackboard and Google platforms, and we salute the institutions that are on the cutting-edge, creating these integrations.

– George Kroner, Blackboard Developer Relations Engineer

Posted by Gabe Cohen, Google Apps Education Edition team

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Editor's Note: Taylor McKnight is a co-founder of SCHED*, a web based scheduling and social networking application for conferences and festivals. He is currently a partner at The Hype Machine, a music blog aggregator and discovery tool for music fans and has worked extensively as a web developer at Gawker Media and The University of Florida. Taylor built SCHED* using Google Docs, part of the Google Apps suite of messaging and collaboration apps available in Education, Standard and Premier Editions.

We're sharing Taylor's story as an example of how Google Apps speeds innovation and makes it easy for good ideas to turn into real businesses, quickly, reliably, and without the need for investment in IT infrastructure.

I'm a rabid music fan, and friends often ask me for recommendations when it comes to festivals, bands, and other music-related events. SCHED* was born out of a desire to keep track of my favorite events.

SCHED* is a simple, social scheduling app that Chirag Mehta and I launched as an unofficial SXSW 2008 Schedule and which spread like wildfire among attendees. There were more than 4,000 bands, panels, films and parties going on during that week and I was obsessed with not missing a thing. I had grown weary of manually building a schedule of recommendations for friends and wanted to build an easy way that anybody could create and publicize a schedule themselves.

We soon expanded to support all kinds of events and new clients including music festivals like Lollapalooza, tech conferences like The Next Web, and political conventions like the UK Labour Conference. We've now handled 80+ new events.

We ran the original version of SCHED* at SXSW 2008 as a makeshift solution using an exported Microsoft Excel spreadsheet file. Once we began working with clients, we began looking for a more streamlined solution – ideally, an online spreadsheet that they could update on-the-go and didn't require programming knowledge. Google Apps Premier Edition provided the answer.

Google Docs spreadsheets, included in Google Apps, was the clear front runner because a majority of conference organizers already had Google accounts and were familiar with the interface. Additionally, the API made it easy for organizers to retrieve data from their spreadsheets. Here's what it looks like when it's up and running:

The idea of driving our entire admin interface from within a Google spreadsheet was exciting. Little to no learning curve, no server overhead, and Google's redundancy made this decision a big payoff. After setting up a simple data template, we used the Google Docs API to give the organizers a way to update the live site. In a single day it was integrated so that a simple click of a button would trigger an XML export of the Google Docs spreadsheet to our servers, instantly updating both our database and the live schedule that users would see.

The benefits of creatively using a Google Docs spreadsheet as a database entry point also gave us additional features we didn't have to build.

Document sharing was an easy way to provide access to all those involved as well as troubleshoot any difficulties live with the built in chat room. If a client needed help with formatting or suggestions for their event types we could give them live suggestions within the spreadsheet. Revision history gave us instant rollback in case there were any accidental overwrites, which are bound to happen.

Having these support features and safety nets built in to Google Docs spreadsheets let us spend more time improving the product itself (like an iPhone compatible version!) instead of reinventing the wheel.


We also use the Google Talk chatback badges embedded into every page of our new marketing site to provide always-on, live chat access to our team. We're excited to give our current and potential clients a new, simple way of communicating with us (even without logging into anything!).

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

Have a story to share about how you use Google Apps? Tell us here and we may follow up with you.
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