This page provides a guided tour of short videos and other resources that will teach you the basics of Google Apps and point you to some tips and tricks shared by customers and Googlers. The "IT Perspective" and "User Perspective" sections details how Google Apps benefits these different audiences. General Product OverviewIT Perspective
- The late 90's was a time of great enthusiasm for the potential of
leveraging the internet for corporate benefit. Bandwidth limitations
and storage costs among other factors led to the end of 'dot com'. Overnight
IT departments reverted from innovation centers to cost centers. Over
the past several years IT has been told to cut costs, keep critical
systems running and make sure the company is covered in case of
disaster or lawsuit. Google Apps Partner Edition has a .35/box/month starting price,
99.9% uptime, and redundant data centers. What is the core function of
your company? Is it managing email? If not, are you happy with the
ratio of resources applied to serving strategic initiatives vs managing
your email infrastructure? Some people still fear the notion of someone else hosing their data. Do you run your payroll, 401k and benefits internally? Google's datacenters have received SAS 70 Type II certification - we're secure and the auditors will vouch for us. Organizations from Genentech, City of Washington DC, to Midwest Realty Ventures and 2nd Wind Exercise and thousands (millions?) more have made the jump. Shouldn't everyone? User Perspective - Ten
years ago your access to the best technology was at the office. Now
it's not unlikely that your home computer or device is better than
anything they give you at the office. And consumer applications such
YouTube, Picasa, Blogger, Facebook and Twitter change the way you
create, store and share information. What advances have been made at
work? Have your email, word processing and collaboration applications
improved at the same rate? Google Apps is not Google's version of what already exists. We're building on what works well and expanding into the future. Companies that are growing are doing so by maximizing their employee productivity. Ideas such as cross-functional teams, telecommuting and mobility have changed the landscape of the corporate worker. We believe it's time their toolkits adapt with them. We once used screwdrivers and hammers, we now use power drills and nail guns. We once used client based email and word processing, we're now ready for the Cloud. We're ready for Google Apps. Google Apps Overview (1:58) More Info: Gmail IT Perspective
- Users get frustrated when they reach their email storage quota,
typically set at 1GB or less, because they're used to seeing ads
selling 1TB hard drives for
$100. What they don't understand is how much more complex adding
storage is than simply buying more hard drives. This isn't the case
with
Gmail for Partner Edition, which includes 7+GB of space for each user, so users can keep
all of their important messages without any burden on IT.User Perspective - Gone are the days of 'You have exceeded your mail quota, you cannot send mail until you delete mail from your mailbox', resulting in deletion of emails that later turn out to be important. But Gmail isn't just about more storage. Gmail also includes Google Search across all of your email, so you can find that email Nancy sent last year about the TPS report (search for "Nancy TPS"). This helps you find information much faster than sorting by sender and trying to remember subject line or the date it was sent. And Gmail's other features – like labels, message threading and integrated text, voice and video chat – help you get more done with your time. Gmail can take a bit of getting used to, but once you have the hang of it, you'll never look back. Gmail Overview (3:31) More Info: Google CalendarIT Perspective - If your employees' computers can run a browser, then they can run Google Calendar. Google Calendar makes group calendaring easy with resource scheduling, shared calendars, integration with Microsoft Outlook™ and support for easy mobile access. User Perspective - Trying to find a time when a group of co-workers are all free? Check the box next to each co-worker's name, see each calendar appear alongside your own, and scan for the empty space. No more guessing only to find out that people have existing conflicts. Google Calendar is accessible from any computer with a browser and is available from many different mobile phones, so you can manage your schedule from anywhere. Google Calendar Overview (0:37) More Info: Google Sites
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Product Walk Through |
