Google has gathered tech press at the Clift hotel for a press event around Google Apps. At the ridiculous time of 9:30 in the morning. Meaning (1) I had to get up at 7 to get ready and battle traffic, and (2) I’m therefore not in a very good mood. Nothing like talking enterprise stuff at the crack of dawn. With that in mind, here are my real time notes. There are definitely some new customer and product announcements. One thing Google isn’t announcing yet is any removal of the beta logos from Google Apps services.
Background: Google Apps, a suite of productivity services first launched in 2006, and has evolved from there. Today more than 1 million businesses use Google apps and “hundreds of millions of dollars” is generated in revenue.
Real Time Notes:
Dave Girouard, President Google Enterprise, says that we’re in an economic downturn, but that great companies thrive in downturns.
He’s talking about the history of Google Apps, which launched in 2004 with Gmail (see image below). Premier Edition launched in 2007 and Postini was acquired later that year. 500,000 businesses were announced in 2008 and Genentech deployed on Google Apps. The chart also shows the headcount dedicated to enterprise efforts at Google, rising from zero in 2004 to over 1,000 today.
New stats Dave is announcing today: Google has more than 1.75 million businesses and 15 million users. More than 4,000 TB of mail is managed for Google Apps customers.
Dave says companies move to Google for three reasons: lower cost, constant innovation, happy end users. Google Apps costs companies $8.47 per user per month (Forrester). Microsoft Exchange online is $20.32. He’s also talking about reliability and uptime and the recently launched Google Dashboard. He says that Google is focused on transparency on any issues. And that Google is getting better at managing enterprise customers so that they have less downtime.
New Product: Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook – “Let users choose their interface: a plug-in that syncs Outlook with Apps just like Outlook natively syncs with Exchange.” See image below.
Product Manager Chris Vander Mey, Senior Product Manager for enterprise, is talking about the new sync product. Users need to move from Exchange to Google seemelessly, he says. Calendar, contacts, etc. The product will launch this afternoon.
This effectively lets Google Apps users use Outlook as the interface to Google Apps. For users who don’t want to only use the browser to access email, calendar, contacts, etc., this is an awesome feature.
Google Apps Sync works only with Windows machines for now. No Entourage on the Mac.
Dave fielded a question about Google Wave and how it might integrate with Google Apps. Dave says “it’s gonna get into Enterprise’s hands as fast as we can.” He says traditionally products are baked on the user side and then moved to enterprise, but, Dave says, he wants to move things along more quickly.
If you are an individual user who wants to use this syncing product, you have to sign up for Google Apps Premier. You can then sync Gmail, Google Calendar and Contacts with Outlook. This is only Google Apps premier, so the free product won’t work.
Looking… uhm… good
It was about time for Google to remove the beta signs. For Gmail, 5 years later.
http://www.twibeo.com
The Twitter and FriendFeed combo.
Mr. Stark,
Why your website admin deletes users’ posts? Big brother?
Where I can find live webcast URL ? Tried searching google apps site and twitter search. No luck ..
Most people in this world DO work 9-5 Mike. Your life is easier than you think
ya, no kidding right? lol
Mark, I doubt his life is ‘easier’
9-5? The 9 is great. But working to 5 is like a part time job.
Can you ask about google apps account integration with standard google account.
Thanks.
They’re interchangeable.
How I did not manage to do it
I am hoping for better Google App integration on mobile… namely the iPhone. Docs in particular are very difficult to manage and perhaps the iPhone 3.0 will enable more productive apps
no announcements on mobile.
I just want to get something straight. Google Apps is like Microsoft Outlook, but only with more features?
and oh yeah. parking is going to be like $20. grrr
boring. They had a whole press conference to announce a feature? And a feature that makes Outlook relevent again?
I was hoping for integration with Orkut or Google groups.
How do you cover events real time ?
By updating on the posts, like some contributors to TC do , or by adding on comments.
I would prefer a time stamp and a feature where a new update automatically comes on the page, with an icon somewhere telling me , that the page has been refreshed. IN this articles, there are pictures, which will reload again, if I refresh, which I would like to avoid.
I am aware of your views on, not giving a feature which a user wants, still I guess we can talk about it.
Can I use this to push gmail to my iPhone? I mean, if I treat gmail as an exchange account on the phone… would that work?
I have the same question (hope)… any word on that?
Hey Mike, is the event over?
Great synergy with OffiSync. If you use the outlook Sync tool for Outlook and OffiSync for word, excel and powerpoint you basically get the best of both worlds, Office on the desktop and the entire google back-end on the back.
Omg, poor Mike had to leave home at seven for what? A basic Outlook connector for Google Apps. A bit disappointing given Googles innovation powers. Do more Wave, Google.
That must be a good news for Microsoft.
This thing will only give more hard time to the already poor Google enterprise salespersons. How are they going to convince the enterprise users there’s any added values Google Apps provides? Cloud storage? I suppose the user could choose Exchange Online if they really need cloud storage, only with better integration story.
Outlook is not the big money maker or the controlling factor in the enterprise – it is Exchange Server. Making Exchange Server irrelevant is definitely not good news for MSFT. Most end users just think email is email so you tell them they can use Outlook but don’t need to keep a server in the broom closet or pay way too much for hosted Exchange. I do realize this is pretty boring stuff especially on the consumer side but this feature provides an extremely critical bridge (snuggley teddy bear so people aren’t so scared) as we work in the field to dislodge the strangle hold of Exchange Server over the business. Unfortunately it sounds like this doesn’t work with Education Edition … which is unfortunate as ever nonprofit org in the world should move to Google Apps ASAP.
This was my best prediction! Cheers google. And finally Exchange era is going to be down! I am really happy!
Er… “seemelessly”?
Free won’t work..:) ANd No Linux TB…:)
TB can work actually without it. IMAP support, cal sync via CalDav, Contacts via gContactSync…
ITS THERE FOR FREE USERS AS WELL….:)
Gah.
As much as technology can rock, communication can still suck.
P.S. – Sorry, forgot to tell you great post!
It is only now this thing is getting so much coverage. HyperOffice had announced their Outlook synch tool as far back as in early 2006. And it is more robust than Google App Sync, in that it also includes task synching, in addition to mail, calendar and contacts.
Google Apps is constrained by its structure, so it cannot mirror much of what is allowed by Outlook. It does not have a task management system, nor does it have a shared contacts system. The user experience and solution structure of Outlook (more collaborative) and Google Apps (more individual) is also a lot different, making for a not-too-good-fit.
Up until two years ago, I swore by a hosted Microsoft Exchange account. For under $100 a year, I had the security and reliability of my email on a solid Exchange server. I also enjoyed direct push email to my handset. At that time, that was a Microsoft Windows Mobile device.
The Google cloud is notoriously famous for sniffing through your emails / conversations and displaying ‘relevant’ ads on your inbox page. No responsible / sensible organization would want to take this risk of making their confidential information available to Google.
Even though Google might claim that user information is kept strictly confidential, when it comes to enterprises, one cannot trust. One of the most popular diggs on the web
http://digg.com...is_watching_you corroborates this fact. I am sure in the enterprise space, specially the large ones, Microsoft or IBM do not have to worry.
i clearly stated that i had to get up at 7 am to be here by 9:30. and it turns out this thing was webcast, so i could have stayed at home.
You just wanted to troll and see if Leo was there so you could hug it out.
Gah.
As much as technology can rock, communication can still suck.