How start up and small business can save money using Google Apps

Most business these days use Microsoft's Office suite of software applications. MS Office (as it is popularly called) is almost as common as a PC in an office. But using office is also a very costly affair. A cost which can be avoided by start up and small business.

Using Google Apps can reduce your cost multi-fold. Here is a quick assessment on how much you can save in an small office with 10 persons:

MS Office
MS office: $400/licence (Cost $4000)
Hosted Email solution for 10 employees: $114/month (Annual Cost $1368)
Installation and maintenance: $600
Total: $5968

Google has offered something similar for over a year, and like OpenOffice (another free package), it's free. Just sign up for Google Docs, and you can create new spreadsheets, documents and presentations or upload those created by Office or OpenOffice, and export or download them in formats that are also supported by both.

Google Apps
Package cost: Free
Setup cost: $50
Training cost for 10 employees: $500
Ongoing Maintenance: Free

You save: $5968 - $550 = $5418

While not as full-featured as Office or OpenOffice, Google Docs offers much more flexibility. You can share documents with multiple people and even allow them to make changes so multiple people can collaborate. If you're out of town or on vacation, you can review and edit files saved online from any machine with an Internet connection and a web browser.

If you combine OpenOffice (another free open source application) and Google Docs, you'll be able to do anything you currently use Microsoft Office for and more (yes more) at zero cost. There may a training cost for training your staff familiar with Microsoft Office to make them aware of google Apps.

And to be on safe side you can keep one or two full version of Office available just in case you need. Microsoft will soon be releasing a version of Office that will run in an ordinary Web browser, called Office Web Applications. These will be available at a small cost compared to Office but not free.

So before you are writing your check in the name of Microsoft for hundreds of dollars to buy expensive Office licences, you should definitely check out the free alternatives available. And sice they are free - what you are going to lose?

Fireforx + Google Apps = FoxGLove Standalone Google Apps Portal

Crafty Firefox user Alex customized his own Firefox Portable installation to tightly integrate with Google Apps. He calls his creation "FoxGLove," and uses it as his own Google-powered productivity portal instead of Microsoft Outlook. Along with his pick of add-ons that enhance and integrate Google Apps in Firefox, Alex tricked out this portable Firefox version with a Chrome-like theme, custom homepages (that auto-load in tabs), web site favicons...

Read full article at lifehacker

How to do voice and video chat from your Gmail window

Always wanted to do voice and video chat from your Gmail window rather than loggin in to Google Talk every time? Your wait is over! 

Here is a new Killer feature from Google! You can now have both voice and video chats with your contacts for free within your browser's Gmail window. 

To do this click on the 'Video & more' menu at the bottom of the chat window, then select 'Start video chat' or 'Start voice chat'. 

The first time you use this feature, you'll be prompted to download and install a small plugin. Do not hesitate and download the plugin.

This feature is available to all users of Standard, Premier, Education and Partner Editions. However this feature is at present released only in US English.

For more information click below:

Google Apps updates

Official Google Enterprise Blog: Gmail voice and video chat

CalDAV support enables Google Calendar access from Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird

Google Calendar now has CalDAV support. Which means, you'll be able to view and edit your Google Calendar events directly in calendar applications, such as Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird. Any changes you make in other calendar applications will automatically appear in Google Calendar the next time you sign in (and vice versa). If you use other calendar applications while offline, changes you make will be saved and updated in Google Calendar when you get back online.

What is CalDAV?

CalDAV is an open protocol that allows calendar access via WebDAV. CalDAV models calendar events as HTTP resources in iCalendar format, and models calendars containing events as WebDAV collections. This allows you to publish and subscribe to calendars, share them collaboratively, sync between multiple users and sync between multiple


Google Calendar at the time of writing this post only supports CalDAV using Apple iCal or Mozilla Sunbird.

To enable Google Calendar in Apple's iCal and Mozilla Sunbird follow the instructions at:

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99358#

There are however few open issues need to be resolved by Google

http://www.google.com/support/calendar/bin/answer.py?answer=99360

I am sure in near future the Google calendar access through other popular client applications will be available.

Use Google Sites as your Free Web Host

Many times it makes sense to go for a free hosting account rather than spend everything on a paid hosting solution. For example, if you are requirement is that of a simple but professional website on which you do not want to spend much. Or when you just want a temporary site. Or what you are looking is just a plain site to show pictures of your pets.

In all these cases the sites do not require a thousands of MBs as space. For most of your needs 10-12 MB is good enough unless you have lot of PDFs and Videos. As for the bandwidth (there is no problem if you do not understand these terms) also they do not require more than 2 or 3 GBs.

You search on internet and you will find many of the web hosting guys (read sharks) who want to sell the hosting plans. (This may sometime include me also). They will always lead you to buy the most expensive plan they have on some pretext or other. Some will say - "hey you need that bandwidth - go for premium plan" or "Our assisment shows that you need a virtual private server". But remember for a small requirement like this you don’t have to go for them. If you have Google Apps just stick to making a professional website using Google Sites. Contrary to popular belief that Google sites does not have good look and feel or thay have very "templated" look -well if you customize it well and use the images smartly - the site can be very professional. You can try suing the Google Sites. And then if you need - you can always upgrade later on. If you feel Google sites is not good enough, then move on. Anyway here are some advantages and disadvantages who want to evaluate Google Sites.

Advantages:

• Google sites has the WYSWIG editors (even year computer savvy child can use it to create a site). Can be used easily by even someone who doesn’t know a thing about HTML. In fact many schools in USA have students using Google sites very regularly.
  
• No software need to be installed - this is one factor that separates, Google Sites from other free web designing sites. There is absolutely no need of web page development software like dreamweaver or front page. There is no need to learn any software, no struggles with FTP and you got nothing to do with complex scripting.
• Making a website in Google Pages is as easy as blogging. If you have ever blogged using Blogger or Wordpress then you know enough.
• Things like creating a table is easy - all you need to do is to cut and paste from a word document.Or you can just create a new page of that type.
  
• Adding photos and attachments is as easy as uploading files is easy. By uploading files, you can easily help the reader to download, simply by clicking a link.
• Google Sites can be easily integrated to documents in Google Docs to present data.
• You can create site for your business domain. So your site appears when you typr your business domain name. If you use masked forwarding then the site visitor may not know that the site is created using Google Apps.
  

Disadvantage:

• It has links to Google Sites (so people will know that you have crated it using Google sites (what is they know?)
• Limitations like fixed templates, fixed site structure and no scripting are allowed
• You don’t have many choices when building the site. There are only a 15-20 of templates provided. You cannot use other templates from other free template sites, or make one using frontage.
• The only way to increase page size is to go vertical. It is also difficult to place links horizontally.
• Google Pages does not allow you to edit HTML of a whole Page, you can edit just sections of it.

I recommend readers of this blog to share their Google sites.

Google now offers service level agreement for Premier edition customers

Google now offers service level agreement for 99.99 percent up time to Premier Edition customers. The Service Level Agreement (SLA) will ensure that customers get extra Service credit if they do not meet the desired criteria.

More about the SLA for Google Apps can be read on their website at

http://www.google.com/apps/intl/en/terms/sla.html

This is sure a good news for customers and is another step to reassure enterprise clients.

Google users can now

If you have a "Google Account" you now have an OpenID similar to a Yahoo account. For Gmail users your Gmail address is your OpenID.

Google has joined OpenID. By joining the OpenID movement, Google helps all of its Gmail users to the hundreds of websites that accepts OpenID, by providing them a way of accessing without creating an account with that website.

However Google has only become an issuer of OpenIDs and has not indicated that it will accept other OpenIDs for people who want to sign up for Google services. Google appears to be an OpenID "provider," not a "relying party." In other words, you cannot sign into Google with your Yahoo account.

But this still helps the OpenID movement as a whole because it gives smaller sites more incentive to join as "relying parties." Among the first sites to accept Gmail accounts for sign in are Zoho and Plaxo.

New features with Gmail contacts and spreadsheets

Gmail Contacts
Gmail will now automatically adds people that you corresponded with to 'Suggested Contacts'. You can move people you correspond with regularly to 'My Contacts'. Gmail's address auto-complete feature will work for all of your contacts, whether they're in 'My Contacts' or 'Suggested Contacts'.

To ensure that only the right contacts are synced with your mobile device in the future, Gmail has moved previously auto-added contacts in 'My Contacts' back into 'Suggested Contacts'. Only contacts that you've moved to 'My Contacts', edited, imported or added to a group will remain in 'My Contacts' for syncing.

Full screen for Google spreadsheets
Google Spreadsheets now lets you view more of your work on-screen. Ctrl+Shift+F toggles between three modes: hide header, hide header and toolbar, and show all.

New Feature: Using Advanced IMAP Controls in Gmail

The new feature in Google Apps Mail (Gmail) is "Advanced IMAP Controls"

This is a Google Labs feature that lets you fine-tune your Gmail IMAP experience. Now you can choose which labels to sync in IMAP and will be useful if you find your mail client choking on a big [Gmail]/All Mail folder.

After enabling this Lab feature, just go to the Labels tab under Settings. You'll see a new 'Show in IMAP' checkbox next to each of your labels. Uncheck the box and the corresponding folder will disappear from IMAP.



There are also some more options for those who want to make Gmail's IMAP work more like traditional IMAP providers: you can turn off auto-expunge or trash messages when they're no longer visible through IMAP.

To understand this better let note that traditional IMAP protocol allows messages to be marked for deletion, a message is still present in the folder but marked to be deleted the next time the folder is expunged 9an option given in mail clients).

In Gmail's standard IMAP implementation, when you mark a message as deleted, Gmail deletes it immediately. If you are comfortable with the old metod and want the two-stage delete process, after you've enabled this Lab, just select 'Do not automatically expunge messages' under the 'Forwarding and POP/IMAP' tab in Settings.

Tips on managing your Google Apps email inbox

Web Worker Daily has given some good tips on how to maintain a zero mail inbox with Google Apps. Some of the tips are really useful and worth reading:

• Using "Remember the Milk" extension to gmail
• Using GreaseMonkey script - Folders4Gmail to have a folder like hierarchy of labels
  

The full article can be accessed from following link:

http://webworkerdaily.com/2008/04/14/inbox-zero-with-google-apps/#comment-306728

GMDesk: use Google Apps applications stand alone

If you use Google’s services a lot, you might have wanted at one time or another to use them as stand alone applications. GMDesk is an Adobe AIR application that allows you to do just that.

GMDesk offers you access to GMail, Google Calendar, Google Documents, Google Maps, Google Reader and Picasa . It also offers the ability to switch between the Google Services via keyboard shortcuts.

It allows you to use any of the applications without opening a web browser and being distracted by surfing or checking the latest in Facebook. It saves time because you don’t have to wait for your browser to open and, if you use more than one browser, there is no problem switching between them.

this application required Adobe AIR. If you are not using Adobe AIR already go to Get Adobe Air, download it and install it.

If you are already using Adobe AIR - Download GMDesk and run the installer.

Georgetown University moving to Google Apps

Georgetown University's email service is moving to from University servers to Google Apps for Education

http://blog.georgetownvoice.com/2008/10/14/georgetown-moving-email-to-gmail-in-spring/

Google Site Usage: Government

A recent example of the use of Google Sites for Government Institutions is for Washington DC. The have recently made a Google site public for their upcoming job fair:

https://sites.google.com/a/dc.gov/octo-jobs/Home

Washington, D.C. Government Implements Google Apps

When it came time for Washington, D.C., to create a new intranet for city employees, spending US$4 million on a site based on proprietary portal software just didn't seem like a good idea to CTO Vivek Kundra. But using Google Apps did.

Google Apps is not replacing Microsoft Office entirely for the 38,000 municipal employees in Washington D.C. However, more and more government employees will be "migrating to using Google Docs instead of Microsoft Office,". Google's online applications have advantages as far as ease of use and the ability to build new sites for the city's intranet quickly and easily. Washington, D.C., has been piloting the intranet with employees since June 2007. The application, which uses Gmail as its e-mail service and Google Apps for documents and spreadsheets, went live earlier this year and is currently in regular use, Kundra said.

Kundra decided to go with Google Apps as the basis for the new intranet not only because it was less expensive -- the city is paying Google about $475,000 a year in licensing fees -- but because new applications and interfaces can be assembled quickly on Google's platform because of its open nature. When we looked at integration and deployment costs Google Apps was at a lower cost and was a faster way of achieving the same goal.

Take for example a new site the city created for its Fall 2008 Job Fair. On it, Kundra has his managers outlining in YouTube videos the positions for which they're hiring, an example of how easy it is on Google Apps to allow for "voice, video and data integration," he said.

SaaS Business Collaboration from IBM

IBM has launched online services for business collaboration based on lotus platform. This makes them a key challenger to Google (Google Apps), and Cisco (webex). IBM has tied together parts of its Lotus, Rational, and Tivoli software to appeal to Small and Mid size Business and departments in larger corporations, because of the minimal up-front costs and maintenance.

This is a "cloud-services initiative" of IBM which makes use of IBM's Lotus, Rational, and Tivoli software. In addition, IBM unveiled an online social networking and collaboration service for business called Bluehouse, which is available in beta at no charge.

By introducing its online services, IBM is targetting for companies looking to avoid the deployment and maintenance costs of in-house software.

Software as a Service is gaining popularity among the companies. While many companies prefer to keep their core business applications and data protected within the firewall, some less-critical applications are becoming attractive for hosting by a third party. An example of SaaS success us, Salesforce.com, for example, has built a successful business around customer and sales-force management applications.

IBM's Bluehouse services are a suite of hosted online technologies that enable employees among business partners or within the same organization to share documents and contacts, collaborate on joint project activities, host online meetings, and build social-networking communities.

For companies looking only for Web conferencing, IBM has launched Lotus Sametime Unyte, which also offers document sharing and multilanguage support. IBM plans to integrate the service in the future with its Lotus Notes and Sametime e-mail and instant messaging software, respectively, to make it possible for users to invite people to a conference with a single click, according to the vendor.

IBM's service offering also will include automated Web content scanning to ensure it complies with business policies. The Rational Policy Tester OnDemand is available on an annual subscription basis. IBM also launched Rational AppScan OnDemand for automatic scanning of Web applications for security bugs. To better control the quality of product data shared online, IBM introduced Telelogic Focal Point, which centralizes information shared by stakeholders, such as product management, engineering, and marketing.

Check the website of IBM Bluehouse at: https://bluehouse.lotus.com

Google Spreadsheet has "New Menu"

As an avid user of Google Apps and Google Docs I have always wondered about when the Google spreadsheet will be more closer to the MS office Excel Spreadsheet in terms of its usability, navigation and features. For a detailed description of the new interface you can go to the already updated Google Docs help page.

Here are some key changes:


One step has been taken by launching the new 'Google Spreadsheets’ menu. Now, Google decided to reorganize the interface a bit and give it a real looking menu. The menu now gives you the standard menu format like - “File, Edit, Format, Insert, Tools, Form, Help,”.

These were the options I was accustomed to in almost much all Office suites. Menus neatly provide access to all commands and functions.








Updated Toolbar: The updated toolbar gives shortcuts to the most commonly-used commands, including one-click access to currency, percent, and other cell formats.

Formulas are now accessible from the toolbar (or, as always, by typing them directly into the cell).

Hover over the sort bar to expose sorting tools. Drag it by the handle on the left to freeze header rows so they are visible while you scroll.


In the Share menu you can invite people, see who has access, publish to the web, and find other advanced sharing features.

Chat with people who are editing at the same time, or just see who's there.







An additional (additional to the other spreadsheets) is the Form option which is now accessible from the standard menu.

So now no need to go to another page to create a form - you can create and edit form right from the standard menu.

I am loving it!

Virginia tech on Google Apps

It seems another educational institution is moving to Google Apps - Virginia tech

http://david.carter-tod.com/wp/2008/09/21/moving-to-google-apps-for-education/

Why are you crying over 'beta' in Google products?

A lot of noice is being made on internet about most of Google products being in "beta". It all started with an article by Web Monitoring company Pingdon in their article where they questioned why out of 49 of Google products 49 are in beta?

They indicated that some of notable products which are stim in beta are Google Docs, Google Gmail and Google Finance. They have even raised objection to Google charging its clients on Beta products.

Google has responded to this by indicating that -  "We have very high internal metrics our consumer products have to meet before coming out of beta. Our teams continue to work to improve these products and provide users with an even better experience.  We believe beta has a different meaning when applied to applications on the Web, where people expect continual improvements in a product.  On the Web, you don’t have to wait for the next version to be on the shelf or an update to become available.  Improvements are rolled out as they’re developed. Rather than the packaged, stagnant software of decades past, we’re moving to a world of regular updates and constant feature refinement where applications live in the cloud."

Frankly as a user of Google Apps and other Google products it does not matter to me whether there is a "Beta" tag or not. And why it should? I am looking for some level of performance and if I am getting it - whether "Beta" or No beta - it does not bothers me.

And to the question of paying for a "beta" product - is there a regulation which prohibits companies for charing beta products. Let the market decide if they want to pay for something. In a free market where competitive offerings are available in market let the users decide what they want to buy or not. If I am getting a superior offering - I am ready to buy it and whether it is "beta" or not doen not matter to me.

I am sure most of my readers agree!

Real Life examples of Google Sites

Dr. Helen Barrett of Washington, United States is an educationist and have recently retired from the faculty of the College of Education at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She has this very impressive Site created using Google Sites.

http://sites.helenbarrett.net/portfolio/Home

Within this Google Site she has a section on "Creating an Interactive Portfolio with Google Sites" which may be helpful to readers.

http://sites.helenbarrett.net/portfolio/how-to

She also conducts professional programs on usage of Google Apps in Education.

Google Apps Primer for Small Business

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps are a set of online applications (also know as Software as a Service - SaaS applications) which enable collaboration among your your enterprise users.


What services are included in Google Apps?

Google Apps services include - Google Mail, Google Talk, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites, Google Start Page (additional in Premier Edition - Google Video). The Google services are customized for a business domain name i.e. your email are like - john@yourdomain.com (and not john@gmail.com).


Do I need to install, download any software or purchase any hardware?

Google Apps does not requires any software or hardware installation and maintenance so no more extra cost for your company. You only required to have a domain name and you can start getting benefit from Google services for free (standard edition).


Who is using Google Apps?

Many small business firms, educational institutions and nonprofit organizations have already adopted and benefited greatly from Google Apps services. Google Apps are well positions to help small businesses and non profits in their endeavor.


Why should I use Google Apps?

Here are few reasons

1. The small to medium size business (SMBs) and Startup Business take hard route to save company cost which also includes the software cost. Google Apps Standard edition (which is free) is a great way to save money.
2. Google Apps gives you fast and secure communication software - custom email address, calendar, spreadsheet, document tools, presentations, and more.
3. Google Apps GMail allows user to send and receiving mails and offers large storage capacity. Large number or mails archived, attachments or mail address can safely kept without worry that you are going to run out of space. Gmail’s also has a very strong virus and spam protection.
4. Google Talk is instant messaging facility integrated to Gmail. Text message as well as voice message can be sent worldwide instantly.
5. Google calendar can be used to share events, fix up meetings and organize schedules. You can even publish your company events on the web.
6. Google docs allows your employees to collaborate online over spread sheets, documents and presentations. Now one can create, edit and share their documents and presentations. And you can publish your document so that anyone can access your contents. They allow you to have option to restrict access only to your team or to some individuals.
7. Email can be delivered to your mail clients, hand held devices like blackberry, iphone etc without any additional charges
   

How Google Apps Mail is different from Gmail

Google Apps mail is for your domain - i.e. your email are like - john@yourdomain.com (and not john@gmail.com).


Whether I should use Standard Edition (Free) or Premier Edition of Google Apps?

Google Apps provide their service with some limitation. For most small companies, the free version will be adequate. You can consider to use upgraded version when your organization become bigger and more complex. You can see Google Apps comparison table for free edition versus paid edition on their website.

The key additions in Premier Edition are - higher mailbox size (25GB in premier edition v/s 7GB in Standard Edition), Ad free online email interface, Additional features in Calender, Additional Service - Google Video, and Additional administration features to integrate Google applications in your IT systems.

If you use free edition, you probably need to find good support. While using free edition you can still go for a trial of premier edition (which is 50$ per user) if you need. Google gives an option to Standard Edition users to try Premier Edition for one month free of cost.


What benefits organizations have derived from Google Apps?

There are many benefits but the prime benefits are

• Lower costs
  
• Reduced strain on IT departments due to streamlined operations and low maintenance
  
• Higher business scalability through easily-deployed services
• Availability of up to date version of software
  
• More productive and efficient employees with best of class communication tools

I am setting Up Google Apps for the first time. What I should keep in mind?

Setting Google Apps is relatively simple. There is ample help available on Google's website. If you do not have a domain you can buy the domain through while registering with Google Apps. This will save you from additional setup work. If you already have a domain and you are not IT saavy - you can take help of a host of service providers available in Google Solutions Marketplace.