Articles about Google Apps

Today, Microsoft made official its most important push into the cloud, ever, with release of Office 365. The software giant took off the beta moniker and released final pricing ahead of a New York launch event with CEO Steve Ballmer.

Office 365 combines Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online, and Lync Online into a single cloud-based package that is scalable from small businesses to large enterprises, with a per-user license cost depending upon the volume of users. The new service is available immediately in 40 countries.

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VMware on Tuesday unveiled Horizon App Manager, an IT solution for provisioning and managing public and private cloud-based services.

At TechEd 2011 in Atlanta, Microsoft put a great deal of emphasis on the accelerating adoption of cloud-based SaaS solutions among corporations who want the ability to deliver and run applications on the widest array of hardware possible. VMware's Horizon App Manager looks to tackle the control, visibility, and compliance aspect of these services.

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In a now very well-cited blog post from last Friday, Google Apps Senior Product Manager Rajen Sheth announced that as of March 1, Google Docs and Google Sites (the company's tool for building your own Web sites) will no longer support Microsoft's Internet Explorer 6 Web browser. A Google spokesperson told Betanews this afternoon that Sheth meant exactly what he said, and no more -- specifically, that the initial phase-out will begin a schedule of similar phase-outs for other apps in the Google Apps suite.

The statement should not be taken to mean, the spokesperson told Betanews, that the company's various Web properties (for instance, ad platforms) will no longer support IE6. Sheth was only speaking for the Google Apps team, we were told. YouTube, a Google division, announced its plan to phase out IE6 support last July.

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By far the strongest feature of any operating system or applications suite -- when its architects bother to include it -- is the ability for its own users to program new and unique features into it. It's also the least appreciated feature on the marketing list; but businesses that have invested heavily in Microsoft Office over the years typically have an extensive library of Excel macros, a war chest of VBA functions built into their Word templates, and a spaghetti tangle of Outlook rules.

Today, Google premiered its approach to user-designed extensibility for its online Apps suite, and so far it's exactly what you might expect from Google: Its Apps Script language doesn't reinvent the wheel, leveraging its grammar completely from JavaScript, which many developers already know. It uses a basic set of terms for representing the graphical objects in the system, and a simple array of methods for making things happen and applying functions to menus. And as for how it can actually improve your work, Google pretty much leaves that up to you.

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Welcome back, Microsoft. After a few years of getting your butt kicked by Google, it's nice to see you waking up from your monopolistic slumber. You seem to finally get it that both Windows and Office don't have indefinite or guaranteed futures, and you're willing to hang yourself out over the edge a bit to keep them both relevant.

This week, Office 2010, the new version of Microsoft's productivity suite, is being shown to developers and media this week at the company's Worldwide Partner Conference in New Orleans. It includes browser-based versions of Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and OneNote that should forever banish bitter memories of Microsoft's initially half-hearted online productivity efforts.

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A great many Microsoft Outlook users don't have the benefit of an Exchange server, so their e-mail and calendar are bound to one PC. Now, a gadget just entering beta could help by extending the reach of personal data to the Web, through Google Apps.

More than 2,000 beta testers have reportedly signed up to help Cemaphore Systems test its MailShadow for Google Apps service, which offers real-time synchronization between Microsoft Outlook/Exchange, calendars, contacts, and Google's Gmail.

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A developer has found a way to host Google Apps on Amazon's Web services platform, and is open sourcing his solution.

When Google released App Engine, some saw it as a way to lock in applications created within Google Apps from being transferred to to any other Web services provider. This would essentially diminish the attractiveness of start-ups from an acquisition perspective, analysts said, for anyone other than Google, or those who may not mind allowing Google to continue hosting its data.

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Fresh off its efforts to improve its e-mail offerings, the search company debuted Thursday a package aimed at helping businesses better share documents and information.

Called Google Apps Team Edition, the new option expands upon its already existing applications platform by allowing businesses to set up and manage work groups. The standard version, first launched in August 2006, lacked some of these collaborative features.

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French technology consultant company Capgemini will recommend Google's online office suite to its enterprise customers, giving the software a huge boost against competitors such as Microsoft.

The move should also put to rest once and for all the argument that Google is not attempting to compete against Office, and instead has its sights set squarely on grabbing a portion of the lucrative enterprise software market.

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Google said Thursday that it had signed on another five universities to its Google Apps Education Edition. The free service for schools offers students of the universities e-mail, calendaring, documents and spreadsheet applications. It was already in use in several schools, including Arizona State and Northwestern, as well as several international colleges.

The schools added Thursday include the University of North Carolina Greensboro, Clemson, University of Texas San Antonio, Kennesaw State University, and Arkansas State.

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