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Posts Tagged ‘Google Apps’

Google Apps Offers Migration for Microsoft Exchange

Google Apps is offering migration for Microsoft Exchange. The service is free with Google Apps Premiere or Google Apps Education.

Last July, Google Apps began offering migration from IBM’s Lotus Notes. Most enterprises are standardized on either Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes, which means that Google now pretty much can migrate any organization to the cloud. Google also offers connection to Blackberry Enterprise Server.Google Apps is providing migration for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007.

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Microsoft has very limited capability to offer a cloud-based email environment. Most of the offerings it provides are locally installed, single-hosting services. Concerns will wane about cloud security. The ability to offer a cloud-based email environment for easy access will be the norm, not the exception. But even though Google has a jump, Microsoft will have its own offering. In the meantime, Google has an opportunity to make another leap into the enterprise.

This does represent a tipping point for many companies shedding IT assets. The question about email often comes up when companies consider moving to the cloud. It’s an important part of the migration. In recent weeks, we have seen how email is becoming a foundation for the evolution of a web oriented, social enterprise. Google Apps Marketplace offers the capability to offer third party applications that integrate with Google Apps. Email is a critical part of the equation in this Google ecosystem. It provides a backbone for companies to connect its employees with Google Apps and the associated third-parties.

The process to migrate looks relatively simple. Through Google Apps, a customer enters their Microsoft Exchange user name and what it calls “two-legged OAuth,” consisting of a consumer user key and a consumer “secret”. They then upload a .CSV file consisting of the email adresses, calendar and contact information. It is optional what to migrate. For example, an IT administrator may upload email addresses and contact data but not the calendar. Email service does not get interrupted during the migration.

This is a compelling offering for companies moving to the cloud. But it’s only part of the equation. Google still needs to prove it is robust enough for the enterprise to migrate to Google Apps. In the meantime, Microsoft needs to act fast and provide a cloud offering that at least gives its own community the option to move Microsoft Exchange to the cloud.

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Insights: Three Reasons Why Zoho Joined the Google Apps Marketplace

Since the announcement went live yesterday about the Google Marketplace, we’ve had a number of companies come to us about how its applications will fit with the service.

We’ll do a fuller look at these companies this week but for some immediate perspective we decided to take a look at Zoho, a service that competes with Google Apps. So it is it interesting that the company joined Google Apps Marketplace in its launch.

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Buy why would Zoho offer its applications to integrate with Google? Yes, the companies compete. But Raju Vegesna of Zoho says that it is far more important to complement Google Apps. Over the past few years the company has worked to make it simple for Zoho customers to use its services in tandem with Google Apps. Zoho offers Google Sign-in, Google Apps Sign-in and recently it integrated with Google Docs.

Vegesna gave us three reasons why Zoho decided to be part of the launch. His perspectives should provide some insights about the symbiotic relationship Google Apps Marketplace will foster.

Extending The Relationship

For many developers, integrating with Google Apps represents a significant business opportunity. Google announced at its launch that it passed the 25 million customer mark over the weekend.

Vegesna:

“First, we have 50% more apps than Google, especially on the business side (CRM, Project Management, Web Conferencing etc). This means, these additional apps can really complement Google Apps. Google has over 20 million users on G Apps and our Business apps can be sold to those customers. “

Google Dominates The Landscape

To play in this era, you have to play with Google. They dominate as much as any company has in the past 30 years. The domination in large part is now solidified by its investment in its cloud infrastructure.

Vegesna:

“Second, we understand that this is going to be a Google dominated eco-system (IBM dominated Mainframe era, Microsoft dominated PC era and Google will dominate the web era) and we wanted to be an important player in this web era. We talked more about this here and here.”

A Platform Built On Email, Not CRM

Yesterday, we touched on why the marketplace makes sense for companies standardized on Google Apps. With all the contacts in one place, people can add applications to fine tune Google Apps. Does a company start with the same foundation if the platform is built on CRM?

Vegesna:

“Third, when someone builds a platform, email is a great app to build the platform around, rather than CRM (which salesforce did). We think it’ll be a good and succesful platform for online apps which will move the web app momentum forward and we want to be a key player (the same way Adobe was a key player in PC era).”

For more about the Zoho integration:

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Google Launches Apps Marketplace for the Enterprise

Google launched an application marketplace today comprised of services from third-party providers that integrate with the Google Apps ecosystem.

The news has been anticipated for some time. In particular, it shows how much Google is embracing open-standards and leveraging its search and Google Apps platform to attract third-party developers.

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Google made the announcement at its Google Campfire One event tonight. The emphasis Google is putting on the enterprise is apparent in how much attention the company put into the event. Over and over we heard that Google passed the 25 million customer mark over the weekend.

It is that mark that Google is using as its hook for attracting developers to its platform. Developers will be charged $100 to join the program. With that entrance fee, they may add as many apps as they wish to the Google Apps Marketplace.

The marketplace supports OpenID to provide a single sign-on for developers. Authorization is integrated into the platform. The customers get access through OAuth, the open standard for authorizing users.

A “manifest page” is the foundation for the service. The developers provides information when adding the application to the marketplace that identifies it. Developers then provide additional information about the product.

The system is a controlled. Application developers submit the app for approval, which might take a few days.

Intuit provided an example of how the system works by showing how payroll could be managed. The customer accesses the account. With Google Apps integration, the customer accesses an account where they have the employee information. It’s that collected contact network that is then integrated with the payroll application.

Atlassian showed how Studio, its project management application, would integrate with GMail and Google Apps. Again, if the company is standardized on Google Apps, the information is available through the network.

Manymoon is another project mangement application that was demonstrated. It uses Google Apps to develop features such as a calendar, showing how a startup can leverage Google Apps to add features to its service.

Other companies that were a part of the initial launch include Socialwok and Appirio.

At its core, the marketplace is built upon Google’s search capabilities. Google Apps can be extended with applications. In turn, developers have access to the built-in capabilities of Google Apps.

Perhaps the greatest value to customers will be if they are centralized on Google Apps. If so, they can get some pretty powerful capabilities of the marketplace.

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Ironic? New Google Apps Security Features For All Devices Except the Nexus One

<a href="http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2010/02/google-apps-adds-enterprise-The Google Enterprise blog has a post tonight about some new features being unveiled that should assuage some of the critics who discount the security of using Google Apps on a mobile device.

The new features permit corporate IT policies to be enforced from the customer’s Google Apps console across different mobile devices with the exception of Android smartphones, which will eventually have similar features.

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It seems ironic not to include the Nexus One and other Android devices. But we have our own speculation why the Nexus One and other Android devices are not a part of this feature upgrade. Google has made it clear that the next version of the Nexus One will be an enterprise smartphone. We expect these features and more to be a part of this upcoming Nexus One device.

We sought clarification on the matter this evening but have not yet heard back from a Google spokesperson.

According to the post, Google Apps Premier and Education Edition administrators may manage iPhones, Nokia E series and Windows Mobile devices from the Google Apps administrative control panel.

The service allows administrators to:

• Remotely wipe all data from lost or stolen mobile devices.
• Lock idle devices after a period of inactivity.
• Require a device password on each phone.
• Set minimum lengths for more secure passwords.
• Require passwords to include letters, numbers and punctuation.

These are all security features that are cited as necessary for acceptance in the enterprise.

The new features follow enhancements made last year, including the Google Apps Connector for Blackberry Enterprise Server. On Android devices, Google announced new Web versions of GMail and Google Calendar. Google Docs was also updated.

Last year, the company also released Google Sync for iPhone, Nokia E Series and Windows Mobile devices. enabling Google Apps users to access and sync mail, calendar, and contacts from their mobile device to the Google cloud.

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5 Web Apps To Keep Your Startup Organized

In a world where emails, phone calls, texts, and Tweets constantly bombard us, it is getting harder and harder to manage the firehose of data and information being thrust our way. For young companies to succeed this environment, it is imparitive they become organized and efficient lest they fall behind and quickly become overwhelmed.

While there is no shortage of online solutions, it can be hard to know which one is the right tool for the job, so here’s a list of five web applications to help kick-start your company and keep it organized without breaking the bank.

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Google Apps – Google’s collection of web apps includes solutions for corporate email accounts, calendars or contacts, but its best use for a new startup is with document sharing. Using Google Docs to collaborate on text documents, spreadsheets or even presentations is far more efficient than sending a file in an email attachment.

In recent years, Zoho has become an increasingly competitive enterprise alternative to Google, even adding integration with Google Apps. Zoho has also introduced more features that help it stand out against Google Apps, including their own CRM solution that aims to compete with Salesforce.com.

Basecamp – We here at ReadWriteWeb use Basecamp on a daily basis for managing ongoing projects and reviewing edits of our stories. Developed by 37signals, Basecamp offers a great interface with an easily read dashboard of the latest activity, as well as to-do lists, milestones and email alerts.

For the on-the-go entrepreneur, there are a handful of mobile Basecamp apps ranging in features and price. Personally, I recommend using Insight for iPhone, which was rebranded from Encamp and recently recommended by 37signals.

Dropbox – Whether it’s large financial spreadsheets, or Photoshop mockups of your website-to-be, you are going to need somewhere to store all your files. Dropbox makes all of these easy and relatively inexpensive, offering up to 100 GB for $20 a month. But it’s not just storage.

Dropbox can automatically sync with folders on your desktop, creating an offsite backup of your vital startup files in the cloud, which any member of your staff can access. An alternative solution would be to use Box.net, however their pricing plans are higher than Dropbox’s and are aimed at larger corporations.

Dimdim – The next time you find yourself struggling to explain an intricate concept to your coworkers through a text document or presentation, check out Dimdim and use the power of screen-sharing to make your point crystal clear. One of Dimdim’s best features is that their product works entirely from within your web browser without the need to download or install any extra software.

Screen-sharing services like Dimdim can save a young company hundreds if not thousands of dollars in travel expenses by providing a much more efficient way to meet and share information. Also a notable service in this space is Citrix’s GoToMeeting. However, like Box.net to Dropbox, its pricing is much higher than Dimdim’s.

MindMeister – Between the last two semesters of graduate school, I worked on a collaborative ten-week reporting project, and used online mind-mapping app MindMeister extensively to stay organized. The application is a great way to keep those more abstract ideas organized in an easy-to-understand way.

Countless startups have mapped out their product ideas and business plans on giant whiteboards, and now the whiteboard has gone digital. MindMeister makes it easy to create and share mind maps and flow charts, and best of all, its free to get started.

Photo by Flickr user simax.

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What does the Nexus One mean for Google Voice, Apps?

With the clock ticking on tomorrow’s unveiling of the Nexus One, it seems most of the focus has been on the hardware and plan details (see below). But looking at the Nexus One as just another Android phone that Google happens to sell is to miss its potential significance as a hardware platform for Google’s increasingly popular software offerings. Specifically, the Nexus One could have big implications for Google Voice and Google Apps.

One of the ways that a Google-branded phone makes the most sense is as a platform for the company to expand the functionality and user base of Google Voice. With the Nexus One launch, we may see Google Voice open up to more users, and we might also see the introduction of long-awaited number portability to the service.

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2009 Year in Review

The year is fast winding down and everyone is no doubt looking forward to a break over Christmas. If you want some reading and pondering material over the holidays, during December we’ve been publishing a series of annual review posts. We’ve picked our best products of the year in 10 categories, analyzed the top companies and made our predictions for 2010. Click on the links below for more details.

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For our Best BigCo of 2009, we selected Google – due to its continued innovation throughout the year. For our Best LittleCo of 2009, we chose a startup that exemplifies the Real-Time Web. For Most Promising for 2010, we selected a company that aims to change the way we search.

In late December the ReadWriteWeb team made a set of predictions for 2010, which we encourage you to comment on and add to over the holidays. It’s always fun to look back on the previous year to see how well you did!

ReadWriteWeb Readers Pick The Top 10 Products of 2009

As voted by our readers in December, these were the ten best products of the year:

1. Twitter

2. Google Chrome

3. Google Maps

4. Facebook

5. WordPress

6. iPhone platform

7. Google Apps

8. Adobe AIR

9. Hulu

10. TweetDeck

The top 10 was voted on by our readers, based on the following lists of products:

1. Top 10 Mobile Web Products
2. Top 10 Consumer Web Apps
3. Top 10 Semantic Web Products
4. Top 10 International Web Products
5. Top 10 RSS & Syndication Technologies
6. Top 10 Enterprise Products
7. Top 10 Internet of Things Products
8. Top 10 Real-Time Technologies
9. Top 10 Startup Products
10. Top 10 Web Platforms

Happy holidays to all of our readers and supporters!

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Weekly Wrapup Special: Best Products & BigCo of 2009

In this special edition of the Weekly Wrapup, our weekly newsletter, we summarize our end-of-year series profiling the best web products of 2009. We also carried out a Reader Poll this week, asking our readers to select their favorite products of the year. We present the results of that poll here.

Finally, this week we announced our 6th annual Best BigCo award. Read on to find out which big Internet company impressed us the most in 2009.

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Order The Real-Time Web and its Future

If you think Twitter is big, get ready for the real-time Web by reading The Real-Time Web and its Future. We conducted interviews with 50 companies and innovators in real-time technology.

“The report is excellent – a great synthesis of why the real-time Web is different, what changes, what doesn’t and what the industry needs to do in order to press forward.”
- John Borthwick, CEO, Betaworks

“It blew our minds… inspiring.”
- Favit

“Recommended.”

-Hewlett-Packard Official News

We’re flattered by the initial praise. You can download the report, take a look at the Table of Contents and this sample chapter, and keep an eye out for the 2-report package that allows you to save money on previous reports when you buy our latest installment.

The print version is coming soon!

Buy Now >>

Reader Picks: Best Web Products of 2009

This week we ran a reader poll, asking for your votes on the top Web products of the year. Thousands of you voted for up to 10 products, from a list of 100 selected by the ReadWriteWeb authors over December.

The poll has now closed and we’re pleased to present the ReadWriteWeb community’s Top 10 Web Products of 2009.

Here is the final top 10:

1. Twitter

2. Google Chrome

3. Google Maps

4. Facebook

5. WordPress

6. Adobe AIR

7. iPhone platform

8. Google Apps

9. Hulu

10. TweetDeck

For more analysis, read our announcement post.

Best BigCo 2009

In one of ReadWriteWeb’s longest-running traditions, every year we review the top Internet companies and their impact over the past 12 months. This week we announced the 6th annual Best BigCo, a.k.a. big Internet company. In 2008 the Best BigCo went to Apple, due largely to the iPhone and App Store. Facebook won in 2007, Google in 2006 and 2004, and Yahoo! in 2005.

For 2009, the ReadWriteWeb team chose Google as our Best BigCo.In our top 100 products list for 2009, seven Google products made the cut:

• Android platform
• Google App Engine
• Google Apps
• Google Chrome
• Google Maps
• Google Search Options and Rich Snippets
• Google Voice

And we didn’t even include Google Wave, its biggest launch of the year. We think Wave has a lot of potential, but it’s clearly at the experimental stage still. The web browser Chrome was probably the Google product that had the biggest impact this year.

Read more about Google and the other nominees…

Best Web Products of 2009

In what’s become an annual tradition, every December ReadWriteWeb selects the best Web products of the past year. In a series of 10 articles, we examined the top web products in categories ranging from consumer web apps to RSS and syndication platforms.

Top 10 Mobile Web Products of 2009

We kicked off the series with a look at the top mobile web products of the past year. This is a subjective list of editorially selected products, but one which includes some of the biggest names in mobile web applications for 2009.

Top 10 Consumer Web Apps of 2009

Every year at ReadWriteWeb, we look at hundreds of new web apps aimed at everyday users. Occasionally, we come across a service that stands out from the pack because it offers a novel solution, disrupts the way incumbent market leaders do business or changes the way we experience the Web. Here is our list of the top 10 consumer web apps of 2009.

Top 10 Semantic Web Products of 2009

2009 has seen a lot of Semantic Web and structured data activity. Much of it has been driven by Linked Data, a W3C project which gained momentum this year. The 10 products we’ve picked out for this end-of-year review are ones that have done interesting things with data. Connecting to other data, building new applications with data, sharing data, and more.

Top 10 International Web Products of 2009

Thriving tech communities exist around the globe, from Toronto to Tel Aviv, and the success of internationally-based web products serve as a reminder to all of us that innovation knows no borders.

Top 10 RSS & Syndication Technologies of 2009

The web isn’t about pages any more. Now it’s about streams, feeds and syndication. Only one service makes a repeat appearance this year.

Top 10 Enterprise Products of 2009

2009 may be remembered as the year that enterprises truly understood the importance of social software. This was manifested by the rise of enterprise collaboration services, cloud computing technologies and the growing importance of mobile technologies for the enterprise.

Top 10 Internet of Things Products of 2009

2009 has been a turning point for the Internet of Things, when real world objects (such as lights, cars and packages) get connected to the Internet. This trend has added a significant amount of new data to the Web, so for that reason alone it is an important development.

Top 10 Real-Time Technologies of 2009

The real-time web was hot this year and it’s likely to become a standard expectation on sites all around the world next year. We’ve tracked this trend extensively with a face-to-face summit of industry leaders and an 84-page research report on The Real-Time Web and Its Future.

Who were the big movers and shakers in real time this year? Check out our list of the top 10 to find out.

Top 10 Startup Products of 2009

There were a ton of great products launched in 2009 by big companies and startups alike, but in this post we focus on the best products released by startups.

Top 10 Web Platforms of 2009

2009 has been a big year for mobile and real-time technologies, which is reflected in our selection of the top 10 Web platforms of the year.

That’s a wrap for another week. Enjoy your weekend everyone and happy Christmas!

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