Three Google apps case studies from the TFPL cloud conference

At yesterday's Cloud Computing conference I heard three fascinating case studies of Google apps implementations

Roger James on Westminster University's Google apps implememtation

• The University decided to turn their student and staff e-mail over to a cloud based providor in the auttumn of 2007. They narrowed the supplier down to Microsoft and Google. After assessing the suppliers, the IT department asked staff and students who they preferred. Staff were split 50/50, but students overwhelmingly preferred Google. In June 2008 they signed the agreement with Google, and everything was set up ready for the students to use when they returned from their summer break for the new academic year 2008/09


The University own the domain name, each google apps account, and all the e-mail addresses. If they want to delete a student's Google apps account they can.


Some people at the University were concerned that outsourcing e-mail to Google would mean that personal data was being stored outside of the European Economic Area (contrary to the 8th Data Protection people). Google have contracted to only store Westminster University's data in European data centres (although it would be hard for the University to verify this is actually taking place). Roger pointed out that before they went over to Google apps 96% of students auto-forwarded their e-mail to their personal webmail accounts (yahoo/gmail/hotmail etc), where the data was going out of Europe and also out of the University's domain.


The University rolled out Google apps to 1,500 staff, without training. In addition to e-mail Google apps gives students Google docs, Google video and Google sites. Roger was particularly impressed by Google video which has turned into a University of Westminster specific You Tube. They have only received 120 help desk calls since it has gone live.


Google apps has cost Westminster just £2,000 because Google offer it free to Educational bodies (Microsoft offer similar deals). Roger estimated it would have cost £1million to put an equivalent infrastructure in.

Paul Driscoll on Google apps at Erith Group

• Erith Group is a demolition firm, with 250 employees. They knock buildings down and clear up the mess afterwards. They became one of the UKs' first Google apps customer in the auttumn of 2006.


Paul had taken out a 30 day trial of Google apps. By chance in the middle of that trial, a fire took hold of a nearby building. As a result of the fire an oxyacetelene cannister exploded, wiping out their server room, and denying the company access to its HQ for an extended period. Paul put all his colleagues onto Google apps, and the company have been using it for their e-mail and document storage ever since


Erith used to have seven servers, now they only have one (to host their accountancy system). Paul reboots that one server every Friday on his way out of the office. He doesn't have to think about servers the rest of the time.


Google apps costs Erith £25 per user per year. Paul estimates it has saved the company £20k per year on hardware procurement, maintentanence and operation. In the break he told me that he thought the actual saving was higher: a 250 person company typically requires an IT complement of 3 people. Erith get by with Paul as the only IT person.

Andy Beale on Google apps at the Guardian

• Unlike Westminster and Erith, The driver for the Guardian's Google apps implementation was its collaboration features rather than e-mail


The Guardian were not able to consider using Microsoft's SharePoint because around 60% of their staff are Mac users, and SharePoint currently has very poor Mac integration.


The newspaper wanted to roll out Google apps to coincide with their move to new Headquarters buildings. They wanted 21st century collaboration features to go with their 21st century building. Andy said that the fact that Google apps is a relatively young system compared with Lotus notes and the Microsoft Office suite was in its favour.


The Guardian wanted a 'lightweight' collaboration tool, to support teams of journalists that come together for short periods in a very fluid organisation.


Google talk (the instant messaging facility in Google apps) has been heavily used by teams of journalists. Andy told us that the ease with which wikis and shared calendars can be set up in Google apps has speeded their adoption.

In his summing up Roger James said that usability was key to software in the twentieth century, and the key to useability was familiarity. Google Apps was so familiar to students that they were able to take it up without training. In Roger's view Google Apps provided Microsoft with its first serious competion in the organisational software market for twenty years.