Posted by Alan Wrafter, Global Channel Marketing

Editor's note: This week we’re featuring news, stories and updates about our vibrant partner community as we host more than 700 partners for our second annual Global Partner Summit. Keep an eye on this blog, our Google+ page and visit our program site for more information on the Google Apps Reseller Program.

As our second annual Global Partner Summit comes to a close, we bid adieu to the 700 guests that joined us from all over the world for three days of thought leadership, networking and best practice sharing (and, of course, a bit of fun). Our partners heard from Googlers including Amit Singh, President of Google Enterprise, and Sundar Pichai, SVP of Android, Chrome and Apps, about the state and future of business technology, all while taking in the vision of our Enterprise business.

Amit Singh and Sundar Pichai discussing 2014 plans with our partners

We also announced a handful of exciting updates and launches to better support our growing partner community, including:

• The news that we now have more than 10,000 Google Apps Resellers.
• A formal technology partner track as part of the Google Apps Partner Program, to enhance our relationships with software vendors that build complementary business apps and tools.
• A tiered Google Cloud Platform Partner Program. Our Premier tier recognizes top service and technology partners, while we've also opened up the program for new partners to join.
• The launch of the Chrome partner program, which includes resellers of Chrome OS management console, as well as technology and content partners that develop business and education applications for the Chrome OS and browser.

Finally, we’d like to congratulate our 2013 Global Partners of the Year:

Our partners aren't just partners — they're a critical part of everything we do. From on-boarding and training new Cloud customers to creating specialized software to integrate with Apps, from reselling Chrome OS to managing change management, they ensure our customers get the most out of the technology they use.

Until next year!

Posted by Rahul Sood, Managing Director, Google Apps

Editor's note: This week we’re featuring news, stories and updates about our vibrant partner community as we host more than 700 partners for our second annual Global Partner Summit. Keep an eye on this blog, our Google+ page and visit our program site for more information on the Google Apps Reseller Program.

As many companies have realized for some time now, moving to the cloud is no longer a questionable proposition — it’s inevitable. Google offers core productivity, collaboration and communication tools within the Google Apps suite, but many companies have realized that to truly run their business in the cloud they need many more tools that address specialized needs like accounting, customer relationship management and project management.

Four years ago — nearly to the day — we launched an online storefront to help our customers find cloud applications that integrated with Google Apps. Since that launch Google Apps customers have added over 200M installs of the more than 750 offerings in the Google Apps Marketplace, which run the gamut of business apps. From UberConference, which integrates conference calling with Hangouts, to DocuSign, which integrates digital signatures with Google Drive, customers can access great apps that help them run their businesses even better. Meanwhile, more and more software developers are finding a highly engaged customer base through the marketplace. Smartsheet, for example, which offers a project management app integrated with Google Drive, discovered that customers from the Google Apps Marketplace share their projects 50% more and add 100% more attachments than the norm.

Today, to build on this momentum, we’re announcing a formal technology track in the Google Apps Partner Program for software vendors that build complementary business apps and tools. This new program will sit alongside our existing Reseller Program, which already includes 10,000+ partners. The new track is designed to recognize technology partners for their successes and offer them technical, marketing and sales support to help bring the products they build to more people.

We’ll start with a limited launch and begin adding existing technology partners to the program today and we’ll open the doors to all software vendors next quarter. Interested in getting involved in the meantime? If you have a business app you think would benefit Google Apps customers, check out our program guide and list your app in the Google Apps Marketplace.

Posted by Simon Corbett, Founder & Managing Director, Jargon PR

Editor's note: This week we’re featuring news, stories and updates about our vibrant partner community as we host more than 700 partners for our second annual Global Partner Summit. Today, we hear from Simon Corbett, Founder & Managing Director of Jargon PR, based outside London. Keep an eye on this blog, our Google+ page and visit our program site for more information on the Google Apps Reseller Program.

I worked at a few large PR companies for a decade before starting my own shop. I saw an opportunity for a small, nimble company to help businesses in the tech industry, and launched Jargon PR in a converted country barn outside London in 2008. Since then, we’ve grown to 12 people, added an office in the U.S. and even netted a few awards along the way.

The PR industry is extremely competitive, and we’re always looking for ways to differentiate ourselves. A few years back, we realized there was an opportunity to do just that with Google Apps. Most of us were using Gmail at home and wanted to be able to create, share and collaborate on documents in real-time at work, too.

There was one big, hairy obstacle in the way: we used Microsoft Outlook, worked on multiple devices and operating systems, and I had no idea how to switch to Google. How would this work if I was using a MacBook Air and another team member was on a PC? We needed someone to walk us through the process, hold our hand and make sure our work didn’t skip a beat along the way.

That’s where Ancoris came in (and saved the day). I’d researched online to learn more about Google Apps Partners, and, after realizing Ancoris were just down the road from us, set up a meeting. The team had done dozens of these migrations, both large and small, and talked us through the process from start to finish, addressing each of my concerns. They took the ambiguity and fear out of the switch. A few meetings later, our Ancoris team came to our office to make sure everything went smoothly, and we were up and running in less than a day. It was quick — no drama, no stress.

Now, gone are the old fashioned days of bad, hit-your-head-on-the-desk technology. No more asking someone to email the latest version of a document, and having to wait for different time zones to wake up to share them. We do all our work on shared Google Docs, so everyone has access to the most up-to-date information and can collaborate in real-time, whether they’re in London or California in somewhere in between. I can open a draft press release from the Drive app on my mobile phone while I’m sitting with my clients at the British Library’s Business & IP Centre. And as the company grows, it takes 30 seconds to set up a new employee with an Apps account, no training required — they’re already using it at home, so using it at work is an organic experience.

Our partnership with Ancoris has continued far past the migration, too. They send us email newsletters with product updates and new features. They’re accessible on chat and via a tech hotline for quick, one-off questions. And because they’re local, they’re never too far away for an in-person visit. Moving to Google Apps, and doing it with the help of a great partner, has been a game changer for our business.

Posted by Prajesh Parekh, Google Apps Partner Marketing

Editor's note: This week we’re featuring news, stories and updates about our vibrant partner community as we host more than 700 partners for our second annual Global Partner Summit. Keep an eye on this blog and our Google+ page and visit our program site for more information on the Google Apps Reseller program.

Millions of businesses around the world—from scrappy startups to large enterprises—rely on Google’s solutions for work. And many of them are supported by a community of partners, including more than 10,000 Google Apps Resellers globally, who help businesses set up and get more out of the Apps productivity suite.

We’ve seen our partner program grow up quite a bit since it was launched in 2009. But it’s not just growing in size — our community has gotten increasingly diverse, with IT providers from a variety of backgrounds and specialties joining us in the last few years. New partners include well-established companies, like CDW and SHI, who have provided IT solutions to customers since before tools like Hangouts or Drive ever existed. Wix and Weebly, two of the most popular website builders for businesses, also recently integrated with Google Apps after seeing the benefits it provided their own customers. These partners, like UK-based Grove Group, are driven to give their clients IT solutions that drive a better way of working.

This week, we’re hosting our second annual Global Partner Summit in San Francisco to celebrate the contributions of partners across Google Apps, Enterprise Search, Chrome, Cloud Platform and Maps for Business. The three-day summit brings together more than 700 partners to collaborate on business plans, share best practices, and engage with product experts. At the end of the week, we hope our partners will leave energized with fresh ideas for how to better help their customers.

Posted by Jean-Martin Thibault, Senior Enterprise Architect at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation

Editor's note: Our guest blogger this week is Jean-Martin Thibault, Senior Enterprise Architect at the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, Canada’s oldest broadcasting network and national broadcaster, known commonly as CBC and officially as CBC/Radio-Canada. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Deeply rooted in the regions, CBC/Radio-Canada is the only domestic broadcaster to offer diverse regional and cultural perspectives in English, French and eight Aboriginal languages. As Canada’s national broadcaster, we bring Canadians programming when, where and how they want it ― through a comprehensive range of radio, television, Internet, satellite-based services and mobile devices. Our team is stationed all over the world, which means real-time communication is key for up-to-date, consistent reporting.

Achieving this at such a large scale isn't always easy. For more than 10 years, we had been using an on-premise, corporate-wide system for email/calendar. We also had a separate system for collaboration, but neither solution was integrated and drove true inter-office collaboration.

With a company-wide goal to reduce infrastructure and a need for better messaging and collaboration, we decided to look at public cloud solutions, especially Google Apps. It was clear that Google Apps was the right solution for us based on cost, proven service level and availability guarantee and the breadth of tools the platform offered for collaboration. We also had great support from the media groups in our company (about 70% of our employees), as many of them had been using personal Google accounts to communicate already with external users. Once we decided to “go Google” we were able to complete a smooth 90-day deployment with the help of Google Apps reseller, Onix, by March 1, 2013.

Since we went live, adoption of the whole platform has well exceeded our expectations of email and calendaring. Google+ Hangouts has revolutionized the way that our employees interact with each other. Long conference calls are now becoming a thing of the past. We can now jump on a Hangout and have a face-to-face meeting with colleagues across the country via our smartphones, from home or the office, without getting on a plane. It’s cost-effective and more efficient without compromising our core business.

Additionally, Google Docs are helping our reporters become better and more efficient storytellers. For example, before, our writers and reporters in our newsroom brainstormed and drafted copy in separate Word documents, which inevitably led to version confusion and unnecessary time spent merging documents. Now, they use a single, shared Google Doc for all their stories, so the entire team can collaborate together, in real time, regardless of where they’re working. Our freelancers use Docs to make quick edits and communicate on the fly since it's simpler for them to share content and edit in real-time.

We are proud to bring the best tools to our company and see the cultural shift that is happening amongst our employees. We are moving away from managing IT and into improving our core business of content creation. We’re excited about what this means for the quality of our reporting and the happiness of our employees.

Update [May 15]: A slight edit was made to this post.

Posted by Dan Petlon, CIO of Enterasys

Editor's note: From the founding of Faneuil Hall in 1740 to the opening of Franklin Southie in 2008, Boston’s businesses have embodied an enterprising and entrepreneurial spirit. Today, we’re wicked excited to hear from Dan Petlon, 2012 Boston Business Journal CIO of the year and CIO of Enterasys, a global provider of wired and wireless network infrastructure and security solutions with a strong Boston presence. See what other companies that have gone Google have to say.

Change in information technology (IT) can be tough. Employees have to learn a new interface and get used to a different way of doing everyday things. But that change is often tougher for CIOs and IT managers since we also have to manage migrating data, handling questions and buying or upgrading hardware. So when we started switching the majority of the company’s infrastructure over to the cloud, I prepared for an uphill battle.

We had been using Microsoft Exchange for more than 14 years and it was starting to outlive its usefulness. Tools that we relied on in Exchange 2007 didn’t work when we upgraded to the 2010 version, calendaring was messy and mobile syncing was even tougher. Our Sharepoint server – the center of collaboration for the company – was just not working.

Our search for a cloud-based email and collaboration system came down to Microsoft Office 365 and Google Apps. While our 1,200 employees were used to Microsoft's tools, we weren't convinced their solution fully understood the cloud; Office 365 still required us to install software and hardware. Google Apps was entirely cloud-based and offered everything we needed with a single license - it was the right way to go for us. We switched last summer with the help of Google Apps reseller Cloud Sherpas.

Our staff quickly adopted Gmail and Google Calendar and also tried out Google Docs, finding that it makes creating presentations and sharing information with each other and outside partners much easier. Our sales managers have started using Google+ Hangouts for preliminary interviews with remote job candidates in order to get a more personal first interview with them before bringing them into the office. We’re also in the process of finally getting rid of our Sharepoint server by migrating the information over to Google Sites and Google Drive. Our Quality Assurance team has about 100 people who all use Sites and Drive to store, organize and share every document they create. Now it’s become company policy: every document that’s created internally is made using a Google Doc!

Google Apps has also helped us make mobility simple for our employees. Their email and calendars are always synced, there’s never any downtime or connectivity issues, like there were with Exchange, and they have all their Docs with them anytime they need them. Almost a year later, our support tickets have dropped over 60 percent and we’ve saved more than $300,000.

In about one year of running Google Apps, 272 new features have been pushed out to our company. That’s an impressive pace and something that would have seemed impossible before, but I see it as the luxury of cloud computing. While change can seem daunting, we’re really happy to have Google Apps as our guide.

Posted by Bryson Koehler, CIO of The Weather Company

Editor's note: Our guest blogger is Bryson Koehler, CIO of The Weather Company, the parent company of The Weather Channel, weather.com and Weather Underground, the most popular sources of weather news and information on television and online. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Most people know The Weather Company from checking out the forecast on TV or from using our mobile app, but we actually do much, much more. Beyond our TV channel and online presence, we sell weather data to business and foreign governments, as well as sell graphic capabilities to local network affiliates. We’re a big, complex organization with a lot of smart people who need the right tools to do their work. It’s my job to make sure those needs are being met.

When I joined the company last summer, one of my first responsibilities was to get all our employees on the same email and collaboration platform. The Weather Company has grown quite a bit through acquisitions during the past year, leaving our 1,200 employees all over the world using a mixed bag of tools. Each business was still working as an independent entity, so getting everyone under the same technological umbrella was crucial to us moving forward.

The choice came down to Google Apps and Microsoft® Office 365. We knew there were strong allegiances to each platform within the company, so there was no clear winner at first. After taking a closer look at Office 365, though, it seemed like a set of individual tools rather than a fully integrated suite like Google Apps. On top of that, Google Apps’ single user licensing was far less complicated than Microsoft’s model. Ultimately, Google Apps was a better fit for our company.

About two months ago we rolled out Google Apps with the help of Google Enterprise partner, Cloud Sherpas. Though change management was definitely a large undertaking, we do feel that the switch brought the company together. It helped us untether people from the traditional corporate collaboration approach of searching through multiple versions and waiting as documents were passed from one to another - something I desperately wanted to do. The culture of our company and the IT department is changing, and Google Apps was a great catalyst to get that moving in the right direction.

We’ve only been live for a short time, but Google Apps has already changed how we work. Google Docs have caught on like wildfire, and people can work from anywhere as long as they have Internet. I see people bouncing around between their laptop, a tablet, their Android phone or whatever – it’s seamless. We’ve also started using Google Drive to replace personal Box and Dropbox accounts that people had been using to share documents, so we’ll have centralized control of our intellectual property. We’re going to roll out Google+ companywide to replace Yammer, although Google+ Hangouts have begun to spread organically. Our marketing, sales and PR teams all use Hangouts to meet, and one employee set up a Google Chromebox and a monitor to create a Hangout station in his office.

Google Apps has created a real sense of excitement at The Weather Company. People are really exploring and embracing it, and that’s exactly what I wanted to see. As we’re abandoning the traditional top-down IT department mindset, all I can do is provide a toolkit for people to work with. Google Apps gives them those tools and lets them work.

Posted by Tristan Dobbs, Managing Director of IT for Classic Cinemas

Editor's note: Our guest blogger this week is Tristan Dobbs, Technical Services Team Guru for Classic Cinemas, a family-owned movie theater chain based in Downers Grove, IL. See what other organizations that have gone Google have to say.

Classic Cinemas has been bringing families, couples, kids and film enthusiasts together in front of the silver screen for more than thirty years – around the time Christopher Reeve donned the famous tights and cape for “Superman” in 1978. Over the years, we’ve grown to 500 employees and over 13 movie theaters in and around Chicago. We’ve also outgrown the film technology we started with. After years of using 35-millimeter film projection systems, we upgraded to 4K Ultra High-Def Digital Projectors. We’re a true 21st century cinema.

When I joined the IT department in 2012, it was clear we were in need of another upgrade – this time, from our Microsoft Exchange server. We had ongoing issues with downtime that cost the company a lot of money and the IT team a lot of time. We looked into cloud-based systems and Google Apps was exactly what we needed – the 99.9 percent uptime sold us.

We switched to Google Apps with the help of Cloud Sherpas in August 2012 and couldn’t have been in better hands. At no point did we ever have a question that they couldn't answer. Data migration? They walked us through each step along the way and made sure we didn't lose a single megabyte. Change management? They ran webinars for all of our employees about moving from Outlook to Gmail, Word to Docs and Folders to Labels. They made switching feel seamless.

We created an employee intranet on Google Sites that houses all our necessary documents – employee schedules, upcoming screenings, movie schedules and parking lists, among others. This means everything important sits in one single place, and everyone on the team can access it. No more wild goose chases over email and no more bothering groups of people with email barrages.

Google Apps also helped us bring our maintenance request system up to date. Before we switched over, people wrote out their problems in a Word doc and emailed them to us, then we printed them out, tracked them on a bulletin board, and took them down one by one as the maintenance team went on-site to handle each issue. With Cloud Sherpas’ help, we built a Google Form on our intranet, so now everyone submits their requests online. The Form automatically feeds into a spreadsheet, which alerts the maintenance team that work needs to be done. We’ve been able to dramatically reduce administration time and boost our productivity to a new level. We now have complete history and statistics capabilities, as well as the ability to identify trends and be more proactive.

Just as digital technology helped us move into the modern era of film, Google Apps has helped us adapt to the future of business. It’s been a smash hit for us - just like “Superman” was back in the day.

Posted by Amit Singh, President, Google Enterprise

Ten years ago, business technology was at the forefront of innovation and productivity. But there’s a fundamental shift underway: in the last few years, consumer technology has begun to outpace business technology. People have fallen in love with the simplicity and freedom of living in the cloud with the help of modern browsers and smartphones—and they want to bring that experience to the workplace.

This is where Google comes in. For the better part of the past decade, we’ve worked to extend our popular consumer products—everything from Gmail and Google Drive to Maps, Google+ and Search—to meet your business needs. It should be easy for you to work better together, from anywhere, with secure (and simple!) tools. Here’s a look back at some key highlights from 2012.

Work securely...
Keeping your information secure is one of our top priorities. To that end, domain administrators can now require their employees to use 2-step verification, an additional layer of security that reduces the chance of unauthorized account access. Your company can also use Google Apps Vault, a solution for managing and archiving critical information for legal and regulatory reasons. If your business operates outside the U.S., we now offer Model Contract Clauses as an additional way to comply with the European Commission’s Data Protection Directive. Finally, Google Apps received ISO 27001 certification, ensuring our systems meet one of the most widely, internationally accepted independent security standards.

… anytime, anywhere...
It should be easy to get work done – anytime, on any device, with anyone. With offline editing in Chrome, you can now create and edit Google documents and leave comments even when you don’t have an Internet connection. Any changes you make will be automatically synced when you get back online. When you’re travelling, you can also edit Google documents and spreadsheets using the Drive app on your iPhone, iPad or Android device. Just like on your computer, you’ll be able to see other people’s edits instantly as they’re made.

If your business has workers on the go, Google Maps Coordinate combines the power of Google’s mapping technologies with modern smartphones to help you improve communication with employees in the field. In addition, the Google Play Private Channel lets you distribute internal apps to your employees who use Android devices. The new Chromebooks and Chromeboxes we launched with our partners are secure and easy to manage, which makes them especially great devices for 1-to-1 programs in schools, additional laptops for office workers, or desktop units for multiple users in a call center. (And we’re honored that Inc. Magazine named the Chromebox one of the best business gadgets of 2012.)

...with simple tools...
We’ve also focused on making our products simpler and easier for you to use – both at home and at work. We introduced Google Drive as a single place for you to create, share, collaborate and keep all your work. You can now insert files (up to 10GB) from Drive directly into an email without leaving your Gmail inbox, and you can share work from Drive on Google+. You and up to 14 colleagues can join a Google+ hangout directly from a calendar entry or your email inbox. Once inside a hangout, you can open a Google Doc for everyone to see and work on simultaneously. And if your company uses Chrome along with Google Apps, you can now call or email us for help with Chrome.

With the Google Search Appliance 7.0, you can search for a document on your company’s intranet just as easily as you’d search for a holiday recipe on Google.com. And if your business relies on geographic data—say, to map gas pipelines or help customers locate your store—you can use Google Maps and Earth Enterprise to visualize your data on the Google Maps interface you’re already familiar with.



...supported by partners and Google infrastructure
Whether it’s Apps for Business, Maps Coordinate, or just a Google search, most Google services you use are possible only because of the powerful and energy-efficient infrastructure we’ve built over the years. This year, we worked to bring you more direct access to this infrastructure to help run your businesses and applications in the cloud. Compute Engine lets your business run virtual machines in Google’s data centers and BigQuery helps you quickly analyze big sets of data to gain business insights. Google Cloud Platform also offers more European datacenter support and lower prices for Cloud Storage.

The new Google Cloud Platform Partner Program ensures that partners have the tools and training to help your business meet its IT needs. And the Google Enterprise Partner Search makes it easy for you to find one of our 6,000 Google Apps Resellers with the services you’re looking for – from setup and user training to email migration, management services and support.

* * *

Work doesn’t always need to feel like work. Leaders in every industry—from retail, media and manufacturing to transportation, education and government—are adopting this notion, which we call “going Google.” Going Google means something different for everyone: starting a wine business with your two best friends, trying to build a bear-proof cooler, or keeping citizens safe. But we all have the common goal of bringing our organization into the future so we can work the way we live.

Posted by Amit Singh, Vice President, Google Enterprise

Whether you’re evaluating Google Apps, ready to make the move, or already a current user, we’re making it simpler for you to find the local, specialized, and trusted help you may need with the new Google Enterprise Partner Search. Search, click, and make the call to see how Google Apps Resellers can make your experience with Google Apps even better.

With over 6,000 Google Apps Resellers around the world, Enterprise Partner Search lets you preview the capabilities of a partner and find one that offers the services you’re looking for – from setup and user training, to email migration, management services, and support.

It’s simpler than ever, search for a partner today.

Posted by Jaideep Mirchandani, Product Manager, Google Enterprise

For IT service providers and channel tools developers looking for a way to scale their businesses, we built a new Reseller API to let you integrate and automate components of the Google Apps reseller tools into your own customer and sales systems. This new API supports Google Apps for Business, Google Drive storage, and Google Apps Vault.

Here’s what you can do using the API, without even having to sign into the reseller tools:

• Add new customer accounts
• Transfer customers
• View customer subscription information

For example, Megazone, a Korean-based domain and hosting provider, implemented the Reseller API as part of their existing domain name purchase process to make it easier for their web-based customers to sign up for Google Apps. If a customer opts-in for a Google Apps trial, they’re automatically set up in Megazone’s reseller console with a trial subscription. The customer can then sign in and start using Google Apps right away. This is a more scalable and easier way for customers to sign up for Google Apps through Megazone.

To learn more about the Reseller API, visit the Developer’s Guide in the Google APIs Console.

Posted by Prajesh Parekh, Google Apps Reseller Team

While Google Apps for Business is built for simplicity, many businesses and organizations have found a way to go beyond the basics with Google Apps. How? These companies have taken advantage of the expertise of a Google Apps Reseller. Google Apps Resellers have invested people, time, and resources into becoming an expert on and providing specialized services for Google Apps – so you don’t have to.

When should you engage a Google Apps Reseller? Here are some ways that Resellers have assisted businesses to date:

• Assessing the initial move to cloud-based solutions
• Helping set up and manage Google Apps
• Training employees to fully explore and use the many features of Google Apps
• Data, data, data – migrating data, implementing data policies, managing storage with Google Drive, and more
• Integrating Google Apps with other business applications
• And more, including support, network and security management, and building Google Sites

This community has grown to over 6,000 resellers, serving businesses, government agencies, and educational institutions around the world. Our resellers have always been the trusted face of your relationship with Google Apps, managing everything from billing to your support needs. Within the community is a set of Google Apps Premier Resellers. These experts have proven an exceptional level of success helping Google Apps customers, and they have staff who are officially certified in deploying Google Apps. We named one Premier Reseller, Cloud Sherpas, Partner of the Year earlier this year for their track record and strong customer references.

Want to get connected with a Google Apps expert? Let us know and we’ll put you in touch.