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Wyoming is a state of many firsts. In 1872, it became home to the world’s first national park – Yellowstone. In 1925, its citizens elected Nellie Tayloe Ross the first woman governor of a U.S. state. Now in 2010, we’re thrilled that Wyoming is the first state in the country to announce plans to move all state government employees to Google Apps for Government.

According to Wyoming CIO Bob von Wolffradt, all state agencies – representing 10,000 employees – will migrate to Google Apps within a year. This will be the first time all Wyoming state employees share a common communications platform, which will improve their ability to collaborate with each other in serving the citizens of Wyoming.

The decision to go Google was the result of a transparent and competitive evaluation process that began roughly two years ago. Wyoming solicited proposals from multiple vendors and awarded the contract to Google partner Tempus Nova. The state estimates the move to Google Apps will save Wyoming taxpayers $1 million annually.

Many other states around the country are using Google Apps, including departments in Colorado, Kansas and New Mexico. Colorado, Iowa, Maryland, New York, and Oregon are also bringing Apps to their K-12 classrooms. All these governments are saving money while equipping their employees with modern collaboration tools that carry the assurance of federal government security certification.

We welcome Wyoming to the cloud, and look forward to working with them and Tempus Nova to make the project a success.

Posted by Dan Israel, Google Apps for Government Team
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[cross-posted from the Official Google Blog]

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.

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
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The Google Enterprise team is excited to be participating in the Computer Security Institute Annual Conference, CSI 2010, taking place in National Harbor, Maryland, from Tuesday through Friday, October 26-29. CSI2010 brings together security and IT professionals from around the world to discuss and share best practices in computer security, risk management and compliance. The event features keynote presentations, workshops, panel discussions and customer case studies. Google’s Adam Swidler will be presenting a session entitled “Is Your Organization’s Data Safer in the Cloud?” at 11:15 AM EDT on Friday, October 29.

If you'll be at the conference, please join us for Adam’s presentation to hear about information security, privacy, and data protection in the cloud from Google’s perspective. If you can’t attend the conference, please visit our website for more information about about the security and privacy of data in Google Apps.

Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team
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This live webinar will be held on Thursday, October 28 at 10:00 ET/15:00 BST. Register here

ChemistDirect.co.uk, Europe’s leading online chemist, provides more than 20,000 health and beauty products and prescription medicines on the web. Fast, relevant search and the ability for customers to easily find the right products is key to the success of Chemist Direct’s online business.

Join Mitesh Soma, (CEO & Founder, Chemist Direct) and Nitin Mangtani (Product Manager, Google Commerce Search) as they discuss the importance of search on retail websites. Mitesh will discuss the various search solutions he evaluated and how since implementing Google Commerce Search, he has been able to capitalize on the latest innovations in search technology, sub-second response times, quick deployment and effortless scalability.

We hope you can join us.

Live Webcast Details
Date: Thursday 28th October
Time: 10:00 ET/15:00 BST
Duration: 40 minutes
Language: English
Register here

Posted by Guillaume De Zwirek, Google Commerce Search Team

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Jason's Deli is a family-owned, casual restaurant chain that serves more than 35 million people a year in the US. Operating over 200 delis in 28 states, the company has a presence in major markets including Chicago, DC, Philadelphia, Atlanta, Houston, Austin, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and Denver.

Jason's Deli was on a custom, legacy email system that couldn't keep up with the demands of so many offices, and users were complaining about the slowness and lagging features. Jason's Deli began looking for a more innovative solution that would continue to release improvements and new features, and that would allow its employees the mobility they needed to effectively run their business.

After successfully completing a 60-user IT pilot in June, the company followed a big-bang approach for migrating the remainder of their users to Google Apps in July. In addition to migrating mail, calendar, and contacts, Jason’s Deli also ported an extensive document library over to Google Docs using the Docs API and custom scripts.

Join this live webcast to hear from CIO Kevin Verde and learn why Jason's Deli chose Google to better support their distributed locations across the country. Thursday, October 28, 2010, 2:00 PM ET / 11:00 AM PT / 6:00 PM GMT. Register now

Posted by Ashley Chandler, Google Apps team
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