​Modern browsers for modern applications

​The web has evolved in the last ten years, from simple text pages to rich, interactive applications including video and voice. Unfortunately, very old browsers cannot run many of these new features effectively. So to help ensure your business can use the latest, most advanced web apps, we encourage you to update your browsers as soon as possible. There are many choices:

Microsoft Internet Explorer 7.0+

Mozilla Firefox 3.0+

Google Chrome 4.0+

Safari 3.0+

Many other companies have already stopped supporting older browsers like Internet Explorer 6.0 as well as browsers that are not supported by their own manufacturers. We’re also going to begin phasing out our support, starting with Google Docs and Google Sites. As a result you may find that from March 1 key functionality within these products -- as well as new Docs and Sites features -- won’t work properly in older browsers.

2010 is going to be a great year for Google Apps and we want to ensure that everyone can make the most of what we are developing. Please take the time to switch your organization to the most up-to-date browsers available.

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Google Apps Senior Product Manager

Launched: Google Apps Script for Google Apps Standard Edition

Back in August we released Google Apps Script to Google Apps Premier and Education Edition customers. Today we're excited to extend the availability of Apps Script to Google Apps Standard Edition, used by millions of groups, families, clubs and other organizations around the world.

Google Apps Script provides the ability to automate a variety of tasks such as modifying Spreadsheets, creating Calendar appointments, checking stock prices, sending email, looking up Contacts and much, much more. For a more detailed overview, check out the video below:



Getting started is easy. You can take a look at the Apps Script Welcome Page, and then work through some of the Tutorials. Before long you'll be writing scripts to automate all kinds of repetitive tasks like keeping track of group expenses and sending out automated reminders triggered by values in a spreadsheet.

In this example, we're using a Google Docs spreadsheet to keep track of our soccer team's weekly dues. Each player owes $5 per game towards shared expenses. Unfortunately the players can be an absentminded bunch that need frequent payment reminders. In the spreadsheet, every amount entered updates a player's column to indicate which weeks are PAID (in green), and how much is DUE (in red). We've also used Apps Script to add a custom menu:

• 'Refresh' recalculates and colors cells to indicate which weeks are PAID and which are DUE
• 'Send Reminders' emails a polite message reminding players in debt to pay up

Go ahead and take a look at the sample code in this template. After choosing Use This Template, select Scripts... from the Spreadsheet's Tools menu. It's a very basic script, but it gets the job done!

Check it out, and let us know what you think!

Posted by Evin Levey, Product Manager, Google Apps team

Site creation, sharing management and more with the Google Sites API

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.

Spelling Suggestions and Thumbnail View in Google Docs

Google Docs lets you create, store, and share work files with teammates and other colleagues. Today we're making it easier for you to search across your files and find your documents with spelling suggestions in Google Docs search results. When you search from your Google Documents List, we automatically check whether your query uses the most common spelling of a given word. If you’re likely to get better search results with an alternate spelling, you'll see a "Did you mean..." spelling suggestion. Never again will you wonder why your search for "agedna" (agenda) came up with zero results!

We also launched a new thumbnail view that displays small previews of your files. When combined with personalized relevance in search results, the thumbnail view makes it even faster to find the file you're looking for. You can toggle between list and thumbnail views using new buttons on the top right of the toolbar.

Finally, we're increasing the maximum file size for the Upload and share any file feature on Google Docs, so now you can upload, store, and share any file up to 1GB in size with Google Docs.

Posted by Nitin Mangtani, Product Manager, Google Apps

How search can add real ROI to eCommerce websites

Although it "makes sense" that good search can increase website ROI, especially for eCommerce websites, it's important to back that intuition with quantifiable data supporting the value of online research search. Thanks to recent research from Market Strategy Group, the evidence is in.

Market Strategy Group's new white paper, titled "Search for Revenue: Leveraging Powerful Search to Boost eTail Sales" shares a range of data indicating how adding or improving search capability on eTail sites can significantly raise revenues. The study covers why site search is more important today than ever before, and delves into the potential ROI companies can achieve by having advanced search on their eCommerce sites.

We're sharing firsthand perspecitves on that value in an upcoming webinar hosted by eCommerce specialists MultiChannel Merchant:

Search: adding real ROI to eCommerce websites
Wednesday, February 3, 2010
1:00 p.m. EST / 10:00 a.m. PST

During this hour-long webinar, you'll hear from:

• Leslie Bacon, Group Publisher at Penton Marketing Media Group, delivering insights on the online channel and how Multichannel Merchant is addressing the shift towards online sales
• Joyce Wu, Partner at Market Strategy Group, covering their recent white paper, Search for Revenue: Leveraging Powerful Search to Boost eTail Sales
• Vijay Koduri, Product Marketing Manager at Google Enterprise, discussing how Google Commerce Search addresses the problems of e-commerce site search speed and relevancy

All three speakers will answer audience questions as part of this event.

Register here. We hope you'll join us to get the facts on how effective search boosts results for online retailers.

Posted by Ashley Gorringe, Enterprise Search team

Migrating 6,000 users in 20 countries from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Barry Driscoll, Senior Director of IT for Fairchild Semiconductor, the $1.2 billion chipmaker. Barry has more than 15 years of IT experience in the semiconductor industry. His responsibilities include enterprise IT support for telecommunications, messaging, database administration, and product design infrastructure as well as responsibility for business applications supporting finance, human resources, and business intelligence.

Barry will be available on a live webcast this Thursday, January 28, at 2:00 p.m. EST, 11:00 a.m. PST, 7:00 p.m. GMT to talk about his company's experience switching to Google Apps, and to answer your questions about this process.

At the end of 2008, we were at a crossroads for our email and collaboration tools. We had to make a long-term decision on what direction to take. At the time, we had over 6,000 Lotus Notes/Domino users around the world using an older platform (Lotus Notes/Domino version 6.5). We had some serious challenges: our users were frustrated with the outdated Notes/Domino functionality, the IT environment was complicated, and the ongoing maintenance costs were high. At the same time, we were working to implement an email archiving and e-discovery solution that was, frankly, not going well. To add to the mix, the world economy was in free-fall and our business was seeing those effects.

We wanted to improve our messaging tools while simplifying the IT environment, but needed a cost-effective approach. We originally thought we should upgrade our existing solutions to the latest releases, but knew that was going to be a time-consuming and expensive approach. So, we started seriously evaluating other options. During our review, we considered the hosted versions of the Lotus and Microsoft offerings, but ultimately focused our attention on evaluating Google Apps.

When Paul Lones, our SVP of IT, first suggested taking a look at using Google Apps as our enterprise email tool, we thought he was joking. But when we started looking at the capabilities, benefits, and costs of Google's enterprise offering, we were very impressed. We then began a more thorough technical and functional review. We determined that the core capabilities for email, calendar, contacts, and IM would probably meet our needs. Since email archiving and discovery were also critical for us, we looked at the Postini solutions. Again, we thought the delivered Postini features would work for Fairchild. Beyond the basics, we also saw the added value of Google's collaboration features available from Google Sites and Google Docs, and the anywhere/anytime access provided by Google's cloud-based services. Finally, we did an ROI analysis and estimated we’d save about $500,000 per year by migrating off of Lotus Notes/Domino. So, we made a case to our CEO and executive team to move forward with a pilot project using Google Apps.

For the pilot, we selected a core group of IT and business employees and asked for some volunteers. To our surprise the CEO and the entire executive team volunteered. As a result, we also included the executive assistants. Although having the execs in the pilot raised the stakes, it turned out to be one of the keys to the project's success. To help us get up to speed quickly and run the pilot smoothly, we partnered with Appirio Consulting. Appirio had previous experience converting large corporations from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps. Appirio conducted one-on-one or small group training sessions for the pilot users and targeted training for the executive admins because of the complexity of their jobs when it comes to collaboration, email, and calendar management.

After a successful pilot, we made the decision to migrate the whole company to Google. The next group of employees migrated were 400 "early adopters" from across the company, including all owners of Notes/Domino applications and databases. The idea was to give these people a head start in moving any important non-email content from Lotus to Google Apps. For the early adopters, we used a combination of live and recorded web-based training. These early adopters also became "Google guides" for the rest of the user base during the full company migration.

Ultimately, we deployed Google Apps to over 6,000 users in 20 countries in less than five months. This deployment included migrating contacts, calendar entries, and up to 12 months of historical email, plus providing BlackBerry support. At the same time, we implemented the email security and email archiving capabilities available using Google's Postini platform.

Now we are providing our employees with a lot more functionality for a lot less money. Google Docs and Sites are really changing the way people work as teams, and the way information is shared. This new way of doing working is really powerful, especially for a company that does business in so many countries and timezones. We are now looking at Google Sites to replace our existing intranet. But the ability to access Gmail and the other Google Apps from anywhere – without having to use a VPN – has probably been the biggest hit.

We learned a lot of valuable lessons throughout the process of evaluating and migrating to Google Apps that we’d be happy to share with you. Please join me to discuss our experience in more detail and to learn how you might leverage Google Apps for your company.

Join us for this LIVE Event on:
Switching from Lotus Notes/Domino to Google Apps by Fairchild Semiconductor
Thursday, January 28, 2010
2:00 p.m. EST / 11:00 a.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. 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.

Welcoming Earth API (and Flash SSL support) to the Google Maps API Premier family

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

Looking "under the hood" of Google Commerce Search: a technical webinar for agencies and partners

How can e-retailers surface product information and a vast number of product attributes for shoppers without sacrificing speed or relevance? In November, Google's enterprise search team launched a new website search option designed specifically for online retailers: Google Commerce Search. Since then, we've heard from many agencies, partners, and solution providers who wanted to learn more about the development and technical features of the product, because website search can present unique issues for online retailers.

If you're looking to dive a bit deeper into the technical side of Google Commerce Search, join us for a behind-the-scenes look in an interactive webinar in which Google's search product managers and engineers will review how Google Commerce Search works, address implementation and administrative questions, and discuss key product capabilities.

Google Commerce Search "Under the Hood"
Monday, February 1, 2010
1:00 p.m. EST / 10:00 a.m. PST

This webinar will include a question and answer session. We hope you'll join us for this informative online event.

Posted by Anna Bishop, Google Enterprise Search team

Enterprise developers: See you at Google I/O!

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!):

• Making freemium work for you: VC panel
• Untangling Auth

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

Achieving a near zero-touch conversion process with Google Apps

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Elliot Tally, Director of IT Collaboration and Automation for Sanmina-SCI, a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider focused on delivering end-to-end manufacturing solutions for communications, medical, defense and aerospace, industrial, renewable energy, and other sectors. Elliot has more than ten years of experience in high-tech manufacturing and information systems spanning a breadth of industries. He is responsible for enterprise collaboration and messaging systems, process automation and integration, and for Sanmina-SCI's suite of IT applications.

Last year, Sanmina-SCI's IT team asked themselves, "Could Google Apps replace Microsoft Exchange for a global, multilingual workforce?" After careful due diligence, the team recently completed a phased migration for 15,000 email users, charting a new course for IT. Elliot and his team will be available on a live webcast next Thursday to talk about the migration and answer questions from participants.

Sanmina-SCI is a leader in outsourced Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS). We have 37,000 diverse employees and our business is very competitive. We needed something that was less expensive to maintain and provided better collaboration tools than what our incumbent vendor, Microsoft, offered.

After putting Google through the test in more ways than you can imagine we decided that Google Apps was the way to go – especially after we saw collaboration tools like Google Sites. Then our job was to migrate 15,000 users in 18 countries...no small feat.

We started with several pilots to pinpoint any issues up front, and we conducted user surveys along the way to be sure we knew what users were facing. Many users got very excited. They knew they could get email from anywhere, and have access to collaborative tools like spreadsheets and instant messaging. We also gained valuable feedback on workflows and other issues we'd need to have a plan for during the migration.

From the start, we provided more than just a "here’s what we’re going to do, take it or leave it” approach. We were serious about ensuring that a certain set of activities happened in terms of communication and training, and showing people the features of Google Apps so they knew they were not missing anything. Then we would migrate a whole plant in less than a week. But the upfront training and familiarization process was paramount to our success. In all, the conversion went faster and easier than we anticipated.

One of the key factors was support from senior executives, who helped us drive and obtain support across the organization. We did get pushback from some employees but we spent time with them and showed them that, from a user experience standpoint, it might work differently, but they weren’t losing functionality.

In the end, we came close to our goal of a zero-touch conversion process as an IT team. It was a pretty highly automated, self-service conversion in moving everyone over. There were some gaps, but overall we are pleased with how quickly and efficiently the conversion went.

I’d be happy to share what we learned at Sanmina-SCI as a large enterprise that has made the move to Google Apps. We hope that you'll join us for this live event.

Migrating 15,000 users from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps, by Sanmina-SCI
Thursday, January 14, 2010
2:00 p.m. EST / 11:00 a.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. 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.

Keeping your data safe

Many corporations and consumers regularly come under cyber attack, and Google is no exception. We recently detected a cyber attack targeting our infrastructure and that of at least 20 other publicly listed companies. This incident was particularly notable for its high degree of sophistication. We believe Google Apps and related customer data were not affected by this incident. Please read more about our public response on the Official Google Blog.

This attack may understandably raise some questions, so we wanted to take this opportunity to share some additional information and assure you that Google is introducing additional security measures to help ensure the safety of your data.

This was not an assault on cloud computing. It was an attack on the technology infrastructure of major corporations in sectors as diverse as finance, technology, media, and chemical. The route the attackers used was malicious software used to infect personal computers. Any computer connected to the Internet can fall victim to such attacks. While some intellectual property on our corporate network was compromised, we believe our customer cloud-based data remains secure.

While any company can be subject to such an attack, those who use our cloud services benefit from our data security capabilities. At Google, we invest massive amounts of time and money in security. Nothing is more important to us. Our response to this attack shows that we are dedicated to protecting the businesses and users who have entrusted us with their sensitive email and document information. We are telling you this because we are committed to transparency, accountability, and maintaining your trust.

Posted by Dave Girouard, President, Google Enterprise

Store and share files in the cloud with Google Docs

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

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

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

Updated: pricing clarification, 01/27/2010. Google Apps Premier Edition users can purchase additional storage for $3.50/gb. At this price, they also get Premier Edition value-adds including a 99.9% uptime guarantee, 24/7 Phone support, and the use of the API and 3rd party applications to automatically upload and manage files on Google Docs.

For more information, see the help center article at http://www.google.com/support/a/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=172732

Sanmina-SCI on "Kicking Google Apps' Tires – Hard"

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Tony Aug, Vice President for Enterprise Apps for Sanmina-SCI, a leading Electronics Manufacturing Services (EMS) provider focused on delivering end-to-end manufacturing solutions for communications, medical, defense and aerospace, industrial, renewable energy, and other sectors.Tony has held a variety of leadership roles since joining Sanmina-SCI in 1996 and leads a global IT team supporting various aspects of the company's operations.

Last year, Sanmina-SCI's IT team asked, "Could Google Apps really replace Microsoft Exchange for a global, multilingual workforce?" After careful due diligence, the team recently completed a phased migration for 15,000 email users, charting a new course for IT.

Tony and Elliot Tally, Director, IT Collaboration and Automation will be available on a live webcast on Thursday, January 14, to share their story and answer your questions.

Sanmina-SCI is a leader in outsourced electronics manufacturing providing Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) with highly complex design and manufacturing solutions. It is a very competitive industry, so we're always looking to reduce overall IT spending while improving service levels. We have to do it with care. We're a large enterprise with 37,000 diverse employees and operations covering every continent except Africa and Antarctica.

When we looked at email and calendaring, we asked, “What are the viable alternatives to our current on-premise Microsoft Exchange 2003 system?” Whatever we chose had to be enterprise-ready. We took several months to answer all our enterprise-level questions, and came away knowing we should seriously consider Google Apps.

We knew that a services-based model would help make our employees more productive not only as individuals but also as teams – not only within the company but also with customers and suppliers. The benefits are greater than simple cost savings. They include better customer service, streamlined business processes, and increased flexibility. Productivity is not easy to measure, but it is more important than other factors in the long term.

There were a few requirements we needed from Google’s offerings, mostly around managing user accounts and ensuring security, and we provided feedback in an iterative process and saw Google work quickly to address our issues. Convinced that Google Apps was right for us, we conducted two pilots and recently migrated 15,000 users from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps. From a strategic standpoint, a main driver for moving to Google Apps was low Total Cost of Ownership (TCO).

I’d be happy to share what we learned at Sanmina-SCI as a large enterprise that has made the move to Google Apps. Please join me for “Migrating 15,000 users from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps by Sanmina-SCI. Join us for this live event.

Migrating 15,000 users from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps by Sanmina-SCI
Thursday, January 14, 2010
2:00 p.m. EST / 11:00 a.m. PST / 7:00 p.m. 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.

"Check out" Google Commerce Search at NRF's BIG Show

The holidays may still be wrapping up, but retailers around the globe are already thinking about the coming year. While final numbers for the 2009 holiday season are being tallied, early estimates suggest growth in e-commerce sales, which grew 15.5% over the 2008 holiday season – quite a contrast compared to 3.6% growth for the overall retail industry (see MasterCard Advisors Spending Pulse, reported in Wall Street Journal, December 28, 2009).

Here at Google, we're looking closely at how Google Commerce Search, our recently-launched retail-specific website search service, can help online retailers use search to improve the online shopping experience.

Next week, visit Google Enterprise at the National Retail Federation's BIG Show, held in New York, New York from January 10 – 13. If your organization plans to attend the show, be sure to visit Google in Booth #365, and in the adjacent Cyber Lounge, to learn how tools such as Google Commerce Search, the Local Business Center, and the Google Maps API can help you build a strong 2010.

Posted by Anna Bishop, Google Enterprise Search team