Over the last year, we’ve been hard at work rewriting the infrastructure underlying Google Docs to take advantage of the latest advances in modern browsers. Our updated codebase will help us deliver richer functionality more quickly, and over the next few days, we’ll be rolling out a preview of the new editors.

New document and spreadsheet features

Let's say you're about to make a very important presentation to a prospective client on the other side of the country. Before you depart on your business trip, you download all of your presentation materials and InDesign® hand-outs onto your trusty thumbdrive. Just in case, you also email the files to yourself.

But while you're in the air, your colleagues back at the office are making last minute edits to the files and your copies are now out of date. Worse yet, when you arrive at your destination, you realize you left your thumbdrive at home.

Sound familiar? The good news is that things are about to become a whole lot easier.

Over the next couple of weeks, we are rolling out the ability for Google Apps users to easily upload and securely share any type of file internally and externally using Google Docs. You get 1 GB of storage per user, and you can upload files up to 250 MB in size.

Now accessing your work files doesn't require a connection to your internal office network. Nor do you need to email files to yourself, carry around a thumbdrive, or use a company network drive – you can access your files using Google Docs from any web-enabled computer.

Combined with shared folders in Google Docs, the upload feature is a great way to collaborate on files with coworkers and external parties. Instead of using cumbersome email attachments, you can upload files to a folder and share it with coworkers, who can then access and edit the files from a single place. You can even have your sales team securely share contracts with external clients for review.

And of course, by using Google Docs, you can quickly and easily search across all your files from one place, getting access to the right file when and where you need it.

Google Apps Premier Edition users can also use the Google Documents List Data API to upload files to Google Docs in batch, or purchase applications offered by third parties that enable you to migrate and sync your files to Google Docs:

Memeo Connect for Google Apps is a new desktop application that offers an easy way to access, migrate, and synchronize files to Google Docs across multiple computers. (PC and Mac)

Syncplicity allows Google Apps users to synchronize, manage, and backup files across desktops and servers, making it easy to use Google Docs seamlessly with existing applications and files. (PC)

Manymoon is an online project management platform that makes it simple to organize and share tasks and documents with coworkers and partners, including uploading files to Google Docs.

We're always looking for ways to make it easier for you to access and organize your information online and we hope you find the ability to store, share, and collaborate on files in Google Docs helpful. In the coming months, we will enable Google Apps Premier Edition customers to purchase additional storage for $3.50/GB/yr (or €3.00/gb/yr in the EU). If you'd like to be notified when additional storage can be purchased, please fill out this form and we will contact you as soon as it's available. As always, we’d love your feedback and if you have any questions, please check out our help forum.

Posted by Anil Sabharwal, Google Docs team

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Updated: description of Syncplicity, 01/14/2010.

Editor's Note: Please welcome our guest blogger, James Ferreira, Chief Information Officer for the Office of the New Mexico Attorney General. He provides IT services to the largest law office in the state. James Ferreira has the privilege of serving the New Mexico public as Attorney General Gary King's CIO. Mr. Ferreira is tasked with the responsibility of facilitating the communication between the public and nearly 200 office staff, including attorneys. Additionally, Mr. Ferreira has served as a member on many committees including the NM Information and Technology committee, NM Technical Counsel, Department of Information and Technology Project Review Committee and the Conference of Western Attorneys General WAGGY committee.

Please join us for a live webcast on Thursday, November 12, 2009 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT where James will be on hand to answer your questions about his office's switch to Google Apps from Microsoft Exchange (3rd party registration required).

Attorneys rely heavily on documents like pleadings, deposition transcripts, exhibits, briefs and other legal materials. In the New Mexico Attorney General’s Office, we have 120 attorneys and 200 full-time employees whose jobs revolve around documents. And it's not just the attorneys. Imagine the news releases, media advisories, scripts and other materials that our communications department has to produce.

We essentially use email as our day-to-day file and case management system, so it is mission-critical. Our previous Microsoft Exchange email solution was falling short – especially regarding the need to safeguard and backup sensitive emails. We looked at moving to a clustered system of in-house email servers for failovers, but we calculated the cost at $300,000, not including continual upgrades.

We began searching for something with ample inbox storage, easy backup and data redundancy and perhaps most importantly, a system that offered high security and reliability. Google Apps Premier Edition emerged as the clear alternative. To put it in perspective, Google Apps and Gmail can support any attorney over the course of a whole career, storing and backing up every email he or she ever sends. Google Apps Premier Edition also passed muster with well-known third-party security auditing organizations.

The move to Google Apps took minimal time and effort, and our users now appreciate the reliability and large storage quotas of their new email system. We have realized many additional cost savings. For instance, we have created a prototype Google Docs archiving solution, using the Documents API. In addition, a few years ago, the department paid more than $50,000 for replication software to store data from a SAN to a disaster recovery site. It didn't work very well – but is no longer required with Google Apps. We also spend less time and money on licensing. In the past, I often joked that we needed to check if we needed a license for the license with our former software vendor. With Google Apps, we get the whole deal up front.

Google Apps Premier Edition was a good fit for the Attorney General's Office. It provides secure, available, and searchable access to documents and emails, while reducing costs and lessening workloads for our busy IT staff. It has reduced the "paper chase" across the board, from attorneys to our busy communications staff. I hope you can join me on a live webcast this Thursday where I'll take your questions about "going Google."

Microsoft Exchange or Google Apps? One Government Agency Goes Google
Thursday, November 12, 2009

2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 7:00 PM GMT

Posted by Serena Satyasai, Google Apps team

Find customer stories and research product information on our resource sites for current users of Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes/Domino.

Teams of coworkers often work on projects involving dozens – sometimes hundreds – of files, like documents, spreadsheets and presentations. As new materials are created and as teams grow and evolve, making sure the right people have access to the latest set of files has been a big challenge.

We're usually very serious when we describe our take on cloud computing, but on Wednesday, June 24, we'll be letting our hair down and having fun with computing in the cloud. We've teamed up with Virgin America to launch the Day in the Cloud Challenge – the first-ever online scavenger hunt to be played simultaneously in the air and on the ground.

If you fly for business or for pleasure, you've probably noticed that more and more airlines are rolling out in-flight WiFi, allowing you easy access internet-based applications like Google Apps. Imagine instant messaging with your colleagues and friends, co-editing a proposal, or responding to personal and work email in-flight.

Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.

Of course, my spreadsheet of choice is the kind I can access from anywhere and share in real time – in Google Docs. So, some would say that even when it makes no sense, I try to do things in a spreadsheet (case in point – my poker simulator – why'd I do that?) But there are some things I never thought possible, like sending an email or reading my calendar.

That's why we're excited to announce a limited test of a new feature which lets people add customization and automation to Google Apps, starting with spreadsheets in Google Docs. We call this feature Google Apps Script.


If you're like me and like to stretch spreadsheets to their limit, and don't mind working with early release features, you can get involved in Google Apps Script now by applying to join this limited test phase.

Posted by Jonathan Rochelle, Product Manager, Google Docs

Get timely updates on new features in Google Apps by subscribing to our RSS feed or email alerts.

Yesterday we released a complete data source implementation for the Google Visualization API open wire protocol in an open source Java library. This enables users of the Visualization API, including enterprises, SMBs and other web application providers, to easily customize their data sources and make them compatible with the Visualization API Open Wire protocol. For some data sources, integrating this library could be an order of magnitude faster and require less resources than having to do a full implementation out of the protocol specification.


Posted by Nir Bar-Lev, Head of Analytics, EMEA, and Yossi Matias, Head of Israel Engineering Center

The countdown to the end of the year has begun and you may be searching for creative but low cost ways to spread a little holiday cheer. Today we shared some tips on the Official Google Blog (Part I) to show you how templates in Google Docs can help your business save time and money when sending cards and gifts to customers and colleagues. Here we share 5 more tips to help you promote your business, organize the holiday office party and make sure you stay within budget:

When you next open a spreadsheet in Google Docs, you'll notice a number of updates to the spreadsheets interface. The simplified toolbar makes it easier to find the most commonly used formatting tools, and spreadsheet features can be found in the new menu, which resembles the interface you're already familiar with in documents and presentations. Use the blue 'Share' menu to publish your spreadsheets to the web, give users viewing rights, or add collaborators who can edit your spreadsheets with you. And as you create formulas and format your data, you'll also notice that we've made speed improvements so your spreadsheet changes load faster.

All the features you love about Google Docs spreadsheets are still here -- just better organized to tidy the interface and let us easily add new functionality.



Posted by Joyce Sohn, Google Apps Marketing Manager