• consumer tech racing ahead of business, typically has lagged behind
  • now end-users are starting to expect the same from business; usability, storage (ex. gmail storage capacity 7.5 GB, vs typical corporate email box 300 MB)
• cloud computing is here; every minute 24 hrs of video is uploaded to YouTube!  Cloud computing offers orders of magnitude cheaper
  • Google hosts 180 million user email boxes
• mobile internet is fastest growth media ever (about 3 years old - primarily from iPhone); 30% of net usage globally comes from mobile devices
  • mobile cloud enables new functionality -
  • voice to text and vice versa (translation)
  • location aware apps

• 3000 small businesses sign up for google apps daily
• google builds its own computers (not chips and drives) but assembles them (like HP) - but for one purpose - to run the google stack
• google data centers - not specific on exact numbers -- more than 12, less than 100, located throughout the world
• features are introduced at consumer speed because only maintain 1 version of the apps
• incremental changes vs forklift upgrades - users can handle a lot changes as long as they're incremental - what they're used to on the internet
• more secure - because can fix/patch faster

Commercial RE business challenges & Google Solutions

• information overload
  • volume of information increasing radically
  • sort / file / find paradigm is broken and was designed to mimic and relate electronic storage to how we worked with paper files - it wastes time - google emphasizes search and cuts out the sort/file steps
• collaboration is central
  
  • ex. google apps ability to have multiple users edit same doc/spreadsheet,etc. at once
  • work with global, distributed teams
  • connect with external partners
  • access anywhere
• proliferation of smart phones -- users looking for mobile access to their information
• stuggles with VPN
• infrastructure inefficiency
• upgrade costs -- upgrading applications, servers, re-training (ex. MS Office 2007) are time consuming and expensive to do
• interoperability -
  
  • want access to apps and data however, whenever, wherever the user is
  • Google apps not isolated to BB, iphone, PC, Mac, etc -- google apps are browser based, access anywhere on any platform - do away with the logistical issues and get down to the results