Proven cost savings

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  Google's web-based messaging and collaboration apps require no hardware or software and need minimal administration, creating tremendous time and cost savings for businesses.

  End users can use the familiar Microsoft Outlook interface for email, contacts and calendar as they transition to Gmail and Google Calendar.

  A leading research firm found that Google Apps is as little as 1/3 the total cost of competing solutions.

  Want to see how much you could save with Google Apps compared to Microsoft Exchange 2007? Estimate your savings

50 times more storage than the industry average

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  Each employee gets 25 GB for email storage, so they can keep important messages and find them instantly with built-in Google search.

  Gmail is designed so employees can spend less time managing their inboxes, and more time being productive. Time-saving features like message threading, message labels, fast message search and powerful spam filtering help employees work efficiently with high volumes of email.

  A leading research firm found that Google Apps is as little as 1/3 the total cost of competing solutions.

Mobile email, calendar and IM access

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  With several options for accessing their information while on the go, employees can be productive with Google Apps even when they're not at their desks.

  At no extra charge, Google Apps supports over-the-air mobile access on BlackBerry devices, the iPhone, Windows Mobile, Android and many less powerful phones. Learn more

99.9% uptime reliability guarantee with synchronous replication

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  We guarantee that Google Apps will be available at least 99.9% of the time, so your employees are more productive and so you can worry less about system downtime.**

  With synchronous replication, your data and activity in Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites is simultaneously preserved in multiple secure data centers. If one data center is unable to serve your requests, the system is designed to instantly fall back to another data center that can serve your account with no interruption in service.

  The Radicati Group found that Microsoft Exchange typically has 60 minutes of unplanned downtime per month. Google Apps customers typically experience less than 15 minutes of downtime per month. Read more

Information security and compliance

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  When you trust your company's information to Google, you can be confident that your critical information is safe and secure.

  Google's information security team, including some of the world’s foremost experts in information, application and network security, are focused on keeping your information safe. Google and many other customers trust this system with highly sensitive corporate data. Learn more

  Businesses get these customizable security features with Google Apps:

• Custom spam and inbound mail filtering tools, powered by Postini, to complement powerful spam filters that automatically work with no up-front configuration.
• Custom outbound mail filtering tools to prevent sensitive information from being distributed, powered by Postini.
• Custom information sharing rules to determine how broadly employees are allowed to share with Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Sites.
• Custom password length requirements and visual strength indicators to help employees pick secure passwords.
• Enforced SSL connections with Google Apps to ensure secure HTTPS access.
• Optional email archiving, up to 10 years of retention.

Full administrative and data control

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  Administrators can deeply customize Google Apps to meet their technical, branding and business requirements.

  Integration options let you connect Google Apps to your existing IT infrastructure.

• Single sign-on API connects Google Apps to your existing authentication system.
• User provisioning utility and API connect Google Apps to your existing user directory system.
• Email routing and email gateway support let you run Google Apps alongside an existing email solution.
• Email migration utility and API let you bring mail from your existing email solution into Google Apps.
System branding and data ownership give Google Apps your look and feel, and ensures customer ownership of employee data.
• Custom user accounts on your compay's internet domain.
• Custom logo and colors in the applications.
• Contractual customer ownership of employee data.

Helpful 24/7 customer support

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  Google Apps is highly reliable and easy to operate, but support is available for administrators should you need it.

  Support options include:

• Phone support for critical issues
• Email support
• Self-service online support

Top ten advantages of Google's cloud

Cloud computing is in Google's DNA

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  Google has been pushing the technological bounds of cloud computing for more than ten years. Today, feedback and usage statistics from hundreds of millions of users in the real world help us bring stress-tested ... Expand innovation to business customers at an unprecedented pace. From our consumer user base, we quickly learn which new features would be useful in the business context, refine those features, and make them available to Google Apps customers with minimal delay.

Faster access to innovation drives higher productivity

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  The web is the epicenter of innovation, and Google's multi-tenant infrastructure is designed so we can push improvements to our entire customer base on short iteration cycles. We can deliver new functionality ... Expand on a weekly basis, or faster, because our systems are able to distribute updates so efficiently. In 2009 alone, we launched over 100 improvements, and customers didn't need to manage any upgrades or patches. In contrast, businesses tend to update traditional server software every five to seven years due to long release cycles from vendors and the cost and complexity businesses face implementing upgrades, especially when more powerful servers are required, like 64-bit hardware.

  Browser-based applications are another key ingredient in our recipe for rapid innovation. When we launch new features in our web applications, users automatically get these improvements just by refreshing their browsers. Our mobile browser applications also get new features without software updates. With traditional technology and "software plus services", client software is an innovation bottleneck. Even after back-end systems can support new features, users don't get new functionality in those environments until the software on their computers and mobile phones have been upgraded, which can be an expensive and labor-intensive project.

Users adopt new functionality with less disruption

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  Rapid innovation powered by the cloud has another advantage over traditional technology cycles: employees adapt to a continuous stream of manageable improvements better than they tolerate large, disruptive ... Expand batches of change. Gradual iterations in bite-sized chunks substantially reduce change-management challenges. Conversely, employees are subjected to a painful re-learning cycle each time companies upgrade traditional software.

Employees can be productive from anywhere

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  Web-based applications powered by Google's global infrastructure give workers full access to their information across devices, so they can be productive in more places. Their data is stored in the cloud - not on ... Expand one particular computer - so employees can connect with all of their information and get work done from any Internet connection. Google's infrastructure gives users seamless access to their information at work, at home, on the road and from their mobile devices. With traditional technology, important information can be trapped in software only available on a limited set of devices, preventing employees from being their most productive.

Google's cloud enables faster collaboration

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  Because data in Google Apps is stored in the cloud instead of on employee computers, multiple users can access and contribute to projects simultaneously without worrying about using the same operating system, ... Expand software, or browser. For example, instead of collaborating on a document by sending back and forth revision after revision as attachments, documents are stored in the cloud with Google Apps. Coworkers can access the web-based document simultaneously in their browsers, and even make changes that other authorized users can see in real-time. Eliminating attachment round-trips by storing data in the cloud saves time and reduces frustrations for teams who need to work together efficiently.

Google's immense security investments help protect customers

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  Google's large investments in physical and process-based security are passed on to customers. First, Google is able to hire many of the worlds leading security experts to protect our systems and conduct ... Expand cutting-edge security research. Our data centers are hardened with many of the latest measures in security precautions, including biometric access controls and multi-tiered security perimeters. Furthermore, Google has implemented a multi-layered security process protocol designed to help keep customer data safe. Our processes have been independently verified in a successful third-party SAS 70 Type II audit to verify our confidentiality, integrity and availability of customer data. Finally, Google is able to efficiently manage security updates across our nearly homogeneous global cloud computing infrastructure, so customer aren't exposed to known vulnerabilities until they install security patches themselves.

Less data is stored on vulnerable devices

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  Browser-based applications also help keep sensitive data more secure. Unlike traditional software, when a user is finished using a web-based application, minimal data is left on the machine that could be ... Expand compromised. Also, when employees can securely access their data from any browser, they're less likely to store data locally on unsecured end-points like thumb drives. In a world where one out of ten laptops go missing in the first year1 and 66% of workers report having lost a thumb drive2, making data securely available from the browser and minimizing the amount of sensitive data stored on devices is an effective security strategy.

Customers get higher reliability and uptime

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  Moving to Google's cloud doesn't mean you lose control of your data or your technology. The Google Apps Terms of Service explicitly state that customers retain ownership of their data in Google Apps, and ... Expand Google firmly believes that customers should be able to easily get their data out of Google Apps if they ever decide to stop using the service. Furthermore, Google Apps provides controls so administrators can manage which applications their users can access and how employees can use each service. Finally, Google Apps APIs allow administrators build custom functionality and integrations with other technologies.

Customers spend less through Google's economies of scale

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  Google buys raw computer parts in massive quantities, and assembles custom servers with few unnecessary components. Not only do we save costs on hardware, we also minimize overhead by consolidating ... Expand on a very small number of server configurations that can be managed in bulk globally at an extremely efficient ratio of staff to machines. On a per-user basis, these economies of scale allow Google Apps to operate at higher levels of efficiency than can be achieved by customers themselves. Further cost savings are also made possible by applications that run in the browser. Customers save time and money because there's no specialized software to license, patch and periodically replace.