Google Apps now incorporates the key security features of Postini directly into the Google Apps control panel. Over the coming weeks businesses that have enabled the integrated Postini will be asked to move their security settings into the Google Apps instead. Cloud Technology Solutions will work with our customers to ease the transition and educate administrators.

Gmail’s spam detection is amongst the best in the industry and has the benefit of being able to automatically learn a user’s individual preferences when they mark a message as spam or not. Our experience has shown that users prefer being in control of their spam but were confused by having to go to a separate interface to manage their settings in Postini, so this change should be welcomed by administrators and users alike.

Benefits

If you have created an organisational hierarchy within Google Apps you will be able to apply different policies at different organisation levels. Settings at a parent level will be inherited by sub-levels and additional filters can then be applied. This allows businesses to apply baseline policies for the entire organisation at the top-most level and then apply department or function specific policies further down.

A particularly useful feature is the ability to create multiple mail footers which can be enabled and disabled a needed. This give businesses the flexibility to create specific marketing messages and apply them to all outbound emails during a particular marketing campaign, then disable them centrally when the campaign is over. You can also decide which footers are added to internal emails so that you don’t need to clutter up internal mail with all the branding and compliance information that you would include on external messages.

Transitioning

Administrators that have integrated Postini enabled will be contacted directly by Google with transition instructions. However, there is nothing to stop businesses starting to move over straight away. Policies can be created within the Google Apps settings today and left in a disabled state until it’s time to cut-over.

DNS and Control Panel Changes

Cutting over from Postini will require a change the to DNS MX records associated with any domains you have in Google Apps. This includes domain aliases as well as primary domains. This change will route incoming mail directly to Gmail instead of Postini so it’s important to have the policies in place at this time.

If SPF records have been entered for Postini these will also need to be replaced by Google’s SPF details.

Changes will also be needed within the Google Apps settings to remove Postini as the inbound and outbound gateway.

Available Features

The Google Apps control panel now includes the following email management features:

• Content Compliance and Objectionable Content filters
• Compliance Footers
• Approved and Blocked Sender lists
• Attachment Controls
• Restricted email delivery

Join us on 9 March at 11AM (GMT) for our webinar introducing cloud computing with Google Apps and Cloud Technology Solutions. Register for free below.

After several months of detailed evaluation as part of the OE Productivity Suite project, and following on the recent CalMail outage, the campus has completed the selection process for a new campus calendar and email platform. University of California at Berkeley announce that on 22/12/2011 they signed a contract to provide the academic community with the full Google Apps for Education Suite. This solution will enable the campus to migrate all students, faculty, and staff to the new service during 2012.

Usually, the decision-making process that goes into such a choice is shrouded in secrecy. But Berkeley decided to be transparent, and published a matrix explaining the pros and cons of both solutions.
In basic terms, Cal decided it could get Google Apps up and running faster and for less money.
Particularly interesting: to move to Office 365, the university would have had to do a double migration — first to an on-premise version of Exchange, then to the online version in Google Apps. This pokes a hole in Microsoft’s claim that Office 365 is a true cloud-based competitor to Office 365. (This double migration wouldn’t be required in all cases, but it’s NEVER required with Google Apps.)

Here’s where Google had the biggest advantages.

Cheaper support during the migration. Because other universities in the UC system have already migrated to Google Apps, Cal can rely on them to provide some support. With Microsoft, it would have to turn to Microsoft Consulting Services “at a significant cost to the project.”

Faster to set up. Deploying Gmail will take six to ten weeks, and the university will be able to keep some recent changes it made to its email routing system. With Office 365, the university has to move from its current system to an on-premises version of Exchange first. Then, it can move from Exchange to Office 365. It will also have to throw out most of the routing infrastructure it just installed.

Works with existing software. Gmail integrates with other Google products that some university departments use, and with the document storage and management system from Box, which the university already bought. Office 365 can work with SharePoint and Lync (which it mistakenly calls Lynx), but it was not interested in those solutions and didn’t even consider them.

Easier to develop on. More people on campus know how to work with Google’s APIs than with Microsoft’s Exchange.

Migration of email groups. Google has a product that could be used to migrate Cal’s existing Mailman mailing lists to Gmail. Microsoft recommended against even trying to migrate Mailman to Exchange.

The solutions were pretty close in other areas, like delegated administration (neither was great, but Google was slightly better), user familiarity (it depends on what product people are using today), and mobile support.
Microsoft won for authentication and the ability to integrate with on-premise systems.

No two customers will have the same needs, but this is a good exercise to show how these decisions are made — and why Gmail increasingly has an advantage among highly cost-conscious organizations like educational institutions and governments.

In the short video below, Google Gmail User Experience Designer Jason Cornwell outlines some of the more noticeable changes to the design and functionality of the mail service.

Jason states in the video:

We’ve been hard at work to update Gmail with a new look, and I’m excited to share with you the biggest improvements. To start, we’ve completely redesigned the look of Gmail to make it as clean, simple and intuitive as impossible

The new version of Gmail adapts to fit in any size window, and if users prefer a specific display density they can set that as well, he pointed out. Google has also changed Gmail’s chat and label functions, giving users the option to customize their preferences.

Some people use a lot of labels, others chat a lot. You can now adjust the size of the label and chat areas to meet your needs. Even if you do nothing, your Gmail adapts to you

Conversations with Gmail have also been redesigned, to improve readability and to feel more like a real conversation, he said. Google has also added profile pictures, so you can see who said what.

Searching is at the heart of Gmail; the new search box makes it easy customize your search and find exactly what you’re looking for. You can also create a filter right from the search box

Analysts say Google’s email service is the only one to really appeal to enterprises in the last few years, apart from Microsoft Exchange, as other offerings, such as Novell GroupWise and IBM Lotus Notes/Domino, are losing momentum.

We are excited to announce CTS as the only current Google Partner that has moved to 100% web functionality using Google’s pioneering new hardware, the Chromebook. As a 100% web company we carry out all the usual tasks and functions that come with working in the industry using our web device of choice-The Chromebook. This has been a painless and inevitable transition.

As soon as Google announced the release of the Chromebook IT directors on a global scale were hailing it the ‘laptop of the future.’ It would seem that traditional companies can no longer ignore the benefits of Cloud Computing. But what is the big draw? Put simply, better security, lower management costs, increased speed. Much like the Android collaboration Google has left the desktop design to the hardware experts partnering up with Samsung and Acer to manufacture the goods. Cloud Computing is being embraced by all areas of business at an alarmingly fast pace which inevitably created a need for a bespoke device which compliments the feather light capabilities of cloud technology. It was really only a matter of time before Google made the leap and created a cloud ready device.

All of the tools needed to run a business are accessible through a browser. And those programmes that aren’t already in the cloud have been virtualised by companies such a Citrix. You can manage your Chromebook online eliminating I.T’s daunting task/cost of hardware maintenance. The Chromebook is a solution providing quick, easy and efficient computing.

Better Security…

The beauty of cloud computing is that your data is more secure than you could ever make any applications on your desktop. It’s very hard to make your data safe and secure from viruses on a standard PC desktop. The Chromebook turns antivirus on it’s head and is immune from typical desktop viruses. A Chromebook runs each web page in a separate environment called a ‘sandbox.’ The device then isolates an unsafe page making it unable to affect other pages or anything else on your desktop. And of course with a Chromebook all your data is stored in the cloud making theft or loss of a Chromebook something you need not worry about.

Speed

The boot up time of a Chromebook is 8 seconds. In that time a ‘verified boot’ is performed, examining whether the Chromebook has been tampered with or corrupted since your last session. Whether you choose to have built in 3G or connect to Wifi once you have logged on to your Gmail account you are greeted with a familiar browser with all your Google apps ready to go.

Cost

Owning a Chromebook reduces cost (in comparison to a standard laptop) by up to 70%. At $28 a month the Chromebook for business includes hardware, Google Apps for business and round the clock support. When using a traditional PC your software only becomes outdated and slower. Whereas the Chromebook constantly updates itself. When owning a Chromebook for business your hardware is replaced every three years.

Chromebooks are merely speeding up the process of saying goodbye to managing hardware, software and all that goes with it. Here at CTS we see the benefits of cloud computing to businesses everyday. For us it was an easy decision and another step forwards towards the cloud computing revolution.

To find out more about Chromebooks click here.

Whilst cloud based email only consumes a fragment of business email providers, according to new research, Google now owns nearly half of that fragment. Given the scale of the systems in place this new information may seem like a small drop in the cloud ocean but it is not to be ignored.

Here at Cloud Technology Solutions we’re working with many organisation, large and small, to help them move to the cloud. Currently our migration tool is being used to migrate over 4000 mailboxes a week from mail systems such as Novell GroupWise, IBM Lotus Notes, Scalix and Microsoft Exchange.

While cloud email is still in its infancy, at three to four per cent of the overall enterprise email market, we expect it to be a growth industry, reaching 20 per cent of the market by year-end 2016, and 55 per cent by year-end 2020.

said Matthew Cain, research VP at Gartner inc.

Although Google have been selling Gmail for a humble 5 years they now have 4 million businesses registered as using Google Apps, with 5000 more users registering each day. This leaves other email servers such as Novell GroupWise, IBM Lotus Notes/Domino and Cisco’s cloud email systems trailing behind. Businesses are now starting to pay attention to what appears to be a two horse race. Recent new features/development (Two step security verification,offline mode) within Apps have only bolstered the ever galvanising presence of Google in the apps marketplace.

Microsoft are obviously a huge presence in terms of competition but as Cain commented; aside from Microsoft Exchange, Google are the only cloud mail system to have prospered on every level as a result of the cloud based I.T movement.

The Cloud Migrator from Cloud Technology Solutions is the only product on the market that can migrate customers from Microsoft Exchange, Novell GroupWise, and Scalix to Google Apps and Microsoft 2010/Office 365.

What everyone loves about Google Apps is that you can access them anywhere, at any time and on any device. Until now the only thing you needed to access Apps was a working internet connection. Today it’s very rare that you can’t connect to the internet wherever you might be, however there is an inevitability that connection problems could occur when you most need access to your Google Apps. As of today that won’t be a problem as Google announce they have made steps in accessing Google Apps offline. Gmail offline is now available with Google Calendar and Docs to follow next week.

Today’s world doesn’t slow down when you’re offline and it’s a great feeling to be productive from anywhere, on any device, at any time. We’re pushing the boundaries of modern browsers to make this possible, and while we hope that many users will already find today’s offline functionality useful, this is only the beginning.

Benoît de Boursetty, Google Product Manager.

We shouldn’t underestimate the impact this is going to have on web based computing. For those of us that already accept that true, public cloud computing is the future delivery vehicle of Information Technology this is a massive step forward. For those that are sceptical, its another wave that can’t be commanded back to the sea!

Steve Kaye, CEO, Cloud Technology Solutions.

This is revolutionary stuff, accessing your Google calendar offline will allow you to view events, plan meetings and RSVP to appointments. Google docs offline allows you to look at presentations, documents and spreadsheets in the same manner. This is only the beginning in terms of Google providing us with offline functionality.

To find out more about this click here.
To install the Gmail offline App click here.

Well in fact it’s the opposite. With my first day at  Cloud Technology Solutions I was introduced to  the business and our aims as one of the leading experts in migration to the cloud. Filled with buzz and excitement about our future ahead I then faced what I thought would be the daunting task of my first experience with Google Apps. Prior to this year you could say I was a ‘legacy application user’ and thought the transition to a solely web based provider could be somewhat difficult. I was allocated as the office guinea pig to try out the newly Google referred training partner Boost Elearning which CTS sell and support. This Google Apps training includes courses on Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Sites.

Initial impressions-the training programme seems pretty slick and easy to follow. With four sections, each section provides you with easy to follow demo videos and a tick list you can follow which automatically marks which part of the sections you have completed. Each sections is summarised with a conclusion page. The software provides for all different styles of learners if you wanted to complete the training in one foul swoop you could be done and dusted in just over an hour and a half. However personally I think slow and steady wins the race. I went through each section with my Gmail account by my side with each summary page I simply paused the programme and carried out the ‘tasks’ within my own Gmail account. Within my first afternoon I had completed the Boost Elearning programme and I’m pretty confident I’ve nailed it. Until Google releases something else into the Labs that is. However the reassuring thing about Boost Elearning is that they promise to evolve their training programme as Google continues to evolve with a fifteen day maximum wait on an update to their system.

So in conclusion ‘my transition’ has been anything but difficult and I can’t help but think that Kerry Katona could have mastered this whilst skating on the ice. My first day has been painless I’m now going to lose my head in the cloud or rather  Google+…

You can now easily open Office files stored in Google Docs directly from Microsoft Office. After downloading the file with Google Cloud Connect, you can sync changes to the file stored in Docs and collaborate with others.  This is an exciting development as the capabilities of the connector were relatively limited until recently.

Editions included:

Google Apps, Google Apps for Business, Government and Education

Languages included:

All languages supported by Google Cloud Connect

How to access what’s new:

Go to the Cloud Connect menu in Microsoft Office and click ‘Open from Google Docs’. All documents that can be opened with the application you’re running will appear in a pop-up dialog.

For more information:

http://googleenterprise.blogspot.com/2011/06/open-files-more-easily-in-google-cloud.html

Frustrated that Google Apps will open multiple tabs for each service?

For example if you’re in Gmail and click a link on an event invitation, it’ll open a new Calendar tab even if you already have Calendar open.

Well there’s an extension for Google Chrome that can fix that behaviour. Get it here: http://cld.so/vqkV9U

The extension works by listening for new tabs being opened. If for example it’s a Calendar url, it looks for an existing Calendar tab and shows that instead, while closing the new tab. If the new url is the front page of Calendar, it’ll just show the existing tab. If the new url is a specific page within Calendar (e.g. event details) it’ll also change the url of the existing tab. The extension works for Gmail, Calendar, Docs and Groups so far.