Gmail

Stanford University in Palo Alto, Calif., is moving from VM Ware’s Zimbra to Google Apps for its entire staff and student-body, according to The Stanford Daily. Stanford has given Google Apps a trial for the past year and is finally ready to open it up campus-wide. Stanford will roll out Google Apps this spring with undergraduate students able to move to Gmail when they choose. Google Docs will then roll out in the summer. The full roll out of Google Apps across the campus cannot happen until Google enters into a Business Associate Agreement with the university.

Stanford is making the switch to Google Apps from Zimbra, an open source email software made available from VM Ware. Stanford’s Matthew Ricks said, “In delivering Google Apps to Stanford, we’re responding to the desires of the majority of our community,” which indicated Zimbra was not meeting the campus’ needs.

Google Apps will offer Stanford document creation from Google Docs through Gmail, management through Google Calendar, and more. Many other schools and organizations have also made the move to Google Apps while citing it to be the most affective. Thanks for spotting the title error, Dane!

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If you ever happen to have no messages in your Gmail inbox, you might notice Google’s subtle way of promoting Google Reader with the small ad for Google Reader (below). Now, Google has removed the “Try Google Reader” link and replaced it with a new message promoting Google+ (via Google Operating System blog). The message now reads, “No new mail! See what people are talking about on Google+” (pictured above). Within the new message is a link to the “What’s Hot” stream of Google+.

With the launch Google+, and its incredible growth (about 750,000 new users a day), many warned the growth was attributable to Google’s ability to pull in Google+ users. So, what happens when it runs out of Gmail users to bring in? Google may have already thought that through with a recent update to the Google account creation process requiring users to both create a Gmail account and automatically create a profile and Google+ account. In other words, not only is the company pulling in Gmail users, but also anyone that wants or needs a Google account for other services.

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[vodpod id=Video.16032223&w=650&h=420&fv=]

Poking fun at Barak Obama’s recent Google hangout and the greater Google Plus, late night comedian Jon Stewart called Google Plus “that thing on top of Gmail that you can’t make go away”.

Google plus, even if it is “that annoying thing on top of Gmail” for some is becoming quite popular it seems.  Google Plus also won a Crunchie last night.
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Google recently enhanced the Gmail offline Chrome app and integrated the webmail service with Google+ filters for circles, auto-sync for contacts and sharing features. Today, new capabilities rolled out to Google Apps for Business, Google Apps for Government and Google Apps for Education editions, managed via the Google Apps control panel. Administrators can now take advantage of improved email compliance footers, approved/blocked sender lists and file attachment policies, the search firm wrote in a blog post.

Previously, users had to resort to Google Message Security to use these capabilities. Google said it improved upon these features and “designed them specifically to meet the needs of our Apps customers.” Last September, Google brought out contacts manager from consumer Gmail to Google Apps.

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After being introduced in August, Google just announced improvements to its Gmail offline Chrome app. The first improvement, which the Chrome team called their favorite, is the ability to choose whether you want to synchronize 7, 14 or 31 days worth of mail. The second improvement includes attachment support, keyboard shortcuts, and enhancements when it comes to performance. You can download the Gmail offline Chrome application in the Chrome Web Store.

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Google just signed its biggest deal yet with a single company to offer cloud services with 110,000 employees in 26 countries of Spanish bank BBVA switching to Google apps.  The bank will use apps like Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Docs, and it will have employees’ access video chats and other collaboration tools. According to BBVA, the deal is the “largest global agreement for the adoption of Google Apps, Google Enterprise suite.”

Through this solution, BBVA seeks to increase its efficiency by providing employees the tools of advanced communication and collaboration. In addition, Google Apps will facilitate collaboration among professionals from the bank, regardless of geographic area in which they are. This is essential to drive innovation in a financial group as global as BBVA. 

According to a report from BBC, who talked with BBVA, the move was largely driven by an increasing number of the bank’s staff utilizing smartphones and tablets as their main computer. The bank already moved 35,000 employees to Google Apps and it expects it to roll out to 110,000 staff members during 2012.

Director of innovation for BBVA Carmen Herranz confirmed to BBC that all customer data would remain on the bank’s servers with the move to Google services only applying to communication among staff. The bank had previously rolled out a successful pilot project with around 7,000 staff, and plans to “closely monitor for any increases in network load.” Herranz said their biggest concern is video conferencing.

Vice President of Google Enterprise EMEA Sebastien Marotte gave a statement in BBVA’s press release highlighting the importance of the announcement and growth of Google Apps:

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Google Apps is a Google service that features several Web applications similar to traditional office suites. The services vary per edition but generally include Docs, Gmail, Calendar, Talk, Sites, Groups, Video, and Marketplace. Its popularity among students and educational institutions is rapidly increasing due to enhanced sharing features, accessibility and cost.

Google Apps for Education is just one edition that offers 25 GB of storage space per user for free through K-12 schools, colleges, and universities with up to 30,000 users. Forty-million active users currently use Google Apps, and according to US News & World Report, 61 of the Top 100 schools have switched to the educational service.

“Google Apps offers simple, powerful communication and collaboration tools for educational institutions of any size – all hosted by Google to minimize maintenance and reduce IT costs,” said Google Apps for Education on its website. “Google Apps is provided to educational institutions at no charge, and is hosted on the same enterprise-class infrastructure used by corporate and government customers.”

UC Berkeley announced Dec. 21 that they planned to make Google Apps for Education their new campus calendar and email system. “Operation Excellence” is a cost cutting initiative designed by the university to save $75 million annually. UC Berkeley currently offers their campus faculty, students and staff access to Microsoft software and Adobe Creative Suite free of charge. However, campus officials agreed to convert to Google Apps for Education in January 2012.

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In a clearing up the “confusion” around Andy Rubin’s recent numbers releases (here and here), the Verge spoke to a Google source on what constitutes an “Android device activation.”

We’ve now gotten some additional clarification from trusted sources on what Google considers an “Android device” for the purposes of counting activations (which would presumably apply to every activation count Google has released in the past). It’s actually really simple: you need to activate Google services on the device. In all likelihood, Google’s counter actually jumps the moment you sign into your Google account on the phone or tablet, whether that be the first time you turn it on or when you’re prompted after jumping into something like Gmail or the Android Market. And as Rubin says on Google+, it only happens once per physical device.

It turns out that Google is only counting activations it activates (I know!). It is not counting devices that use Android code, because it does not have control over -or no way of- counting like the Kindle Fire or Barnes and Noble Nook (I know!).

Perhaps Amazon, who is very transparent with its Kindle numbers, could help Google out there.

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Google has just started rolling out an update to the Gmail app for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch with a few new welcomed features. First off, users now have the ability to set a custom signature for messages as well as a vacation responder. Both of those new features will be available via the gear icon at the top of the app’s new menu. The update also includes support for nested labels and the usual “bug fixes and UI improvements”.

A new Scribbles feature allows you to open a canvas, draw a picture or sketch with multiple colors, brush sizes and line elements, and attach it to a message within Gmail. Scribbles is available now in both the Gmail iOS app and Gmail mobile web app. Another notable and highly requested change is a new notification sound on iOS 5, making it easier to tell when you’ve received an email

Google also mentioned in their blog post that they are continuing to work on some of the most requested features from users including multiple login support, banner notifications, and a “send as” feature to mail send mail from multiple accounts within the app.

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Kevin Fox, a former lead designer for Google Reader, has made an offer to Google on his blog. Kevin offers that he will sign a three month contract to come back to Google to help restore the Reader product after this week’s changes — which he isn’t a fan of by any means. In fact, most people aren’t happy with Google getting rid of old social features to implement Google+.

Kevin says that he will keep with the design changes that Google is making across all products, but will restore and enhance Google Reader to the product it should be. Here’s to the best Kevin.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=vfW5e6jVsMs]

As we first reported following a leaked promo video, Google is today rolling out a pretty big update to Gmail that will provide some major enhancements to the interface.

There isn’t much more included in the update than previously revealed, but the changes, including streamlined conversations, elastic density, new HD themes, improved search, and “smarter navigation”, were definitely worth the wait.

The “better search” comes from a new drop down panel that allows you to select filters and advanced search options, while smart navigation is part of the overall UI redesign allowing you to always see your labels and chat, as well as customize the items in the left pane. You can now use arrow keys to navigate the interface, too.

Elastic density is a nice addition, allowing you to select one of the three predefined settings that will control the spacing between items in your inbox. The settings include “Comfortable”, “Cozy”, and “Compact”. Streamlined conversations are perhaps the biggest and best change, providing a new dynamic conversation view seen below:

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Android Police has gotten exclusive screenshots of the Gmail, Calendar, and Email widgets for the upcoming Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. As you can see with the Gmail widget above, the Ice Cream Sandwich version features a slightly upgraded UI, but is missing Labels. Below is calendars
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Over the past 60 hours, Chinese officials have begun blocking Gmail and the Android Market running on Android devices reports Penn Olson. In the report, Penn Olson says that Gmail can’t send a single email and the Market is incredibly slow, making it utterly useless. The ban is currently taking place across many ISPs and mobile carriers around the country.

As the report mentions, this ban won’t affect that many Android users in China. Many use other email providers and other app markets that have been made available. But at any rate, why would China begin to make this move? Now there’s no confirming this.. but what if it was a possibility:

Come to think of it, it might be related to how Google+ this weekend enabled the Dalai Lama to chat with the Archbishop Desmond Tutu – a virtual equivalent of the planned face-to-face birthday meeting in South Africa that Chinese authorities were so utterly desperate to stop.

..just a little something to think about.

The Next Web is reporting that the US Government and Google are in talks over a contract that would license Google Apps to the whole US Government staff. The contract totals up-to $50 million dollars. The US Gov is also considering Microsoft’s productivity suite.

Microsoft’s suite could be considered pretty solid, but also pretty bland. Many corporations, and school districts, are currently using Microsoft’s suite. Some would say it’s in a good spot, but when compared to Google it just not up-to par (in my opinion). Many city governments are already using Google Apps.. so let’s call this a fair fight.

The US Government is currently reviewing the terms, and will soon select which company they’d like to side with. At any rate, both companies are probably opening their arms to $50 million, so it’ll be interesting to see how this plays out.

Google has just published a study entitled “Google’s Green Computing: Efficiency at Scale” comparing traditional business email solutions with Gmail. The results? Gmail is “almost 80 times” more energy efficient than conventional in-house software. This takes into account all Google infrastructure necessary to support the service.

A report from the Official Google Blog explains:

“…cloud-based services are typically housed in highly efficient data centers that operate at higher server utilization rates and use hardware and software that’s built specifically for the services they provide—conditions that small businesses are rarely able to create on their own.”

To help put it all in perspective (kind of), Google offers the comparison presented in the graphic below showing one year of Gmail is comparable to drinking a bottle of wine, stuffing a letter inside, and throwing it in the ocean. Google also put YouTube to the test and discovered that 1 minute of video consumes approximately 0.0002 kWh of energy. Thus, 72 hours of video would be equivalent to one packaged and delivered DVD. 

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Strangely enough, offline mode in Gmail is a standalone web app (pictured above) rather than being baked into Gmail directly. Click for larger.

Google announced in a post over at the official Gmail blog that it is bringing offline functionality back to Gmail, Calendar and Docs. The feature had initially been enabled in select Google services via Gears, the company’s proprietary browser extension that was later retired in favor of HTML5. It took longer than expected to re-write the offline functionality in HTML5, though. This was in part because Google had to wait until the World Wide Web Consortium ratified new HTML5 features that allow for local browser storage and other technologies that make it possible for developers to write web apps which sync seamlessly between offline and always-on modes of operation.

Gmail offline will be available today, Google said, and offline for Google Calendar and Google Docs will be rolling out over the next week, starting today. In the case of Gmail, offline functionality is enabled via a Chrome Web Store app dubbed Offline Google Mail. As for Calendar and Docs, clicking the gear icon at the top right corner and choosing the Offline mode lets you view events from your calendars and RSVP to appointments while offline, as well as view your Google documents and spreadsheets. Offline Docs editing isn’t supported yet, but Google is “working hard to make it a reality”.

The question is, will you care about working offline now that mobile/broadband Internet and wireless hotspots have become ubiquitous?  (YES!)

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Google engineer Ido Green just made comment on This week in Google that offline mode for Gmail and Calendar are on their way by the end of the summer. There was talk of these features at this year’s Google I/O, but it’s nice to know offline mode is still on track. Besides Gmail and Calendar, Green also said there are a few more offline features coming.

Google’s Mark Striebeck noted on Google+ tonight that in Gmail you can now see the most recent Google+ post made by the sender. Hopefully, those are only public posts or posts meant to be shared with the recipiant or oh, boy another privacy stink coming.

Be on the lookout for this in your inbox.
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If you have ever used Gmail on a tablet, you’ve probably appreciated the improvements made to the mobile UI and missed them when forced to use Gmail from your desktop browser. Luckily, Google just introduced a new preview pane feature for Gmail that allows you to quickly view snippets of messages, much like the mobile interface currently accessible on tablets (which, yes, dates from Outlook 2003 – thanks commenters).

You can enable the feature by turning it on from the Labs tab in your Gmail settings and switching between views via a new toggle button in the upper right corner of your inbox.

You can also move the preview pane below your message list if you have limited screen real
estate.

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[youtube=”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PvNchySxIkw”]

Google has announced an update to their Gmail for mobile website. The updates are pretty minor, but we’re grateful for them nonetheless. First off, you can now pull down the message list to refresh your inbox (iOS and Blackberry PlayBook).

Google also included two minor updates: high-res icons and transitions. The high-res icons are pretty, as seen after the break. Lastly, transitions will take place when you tap on a conversation, tap back to the inbox, go to the menu or go back, the view will slide left or right. Check out a few press shots after the break.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QG190LlSmrg]

Today Google started rolling out the calling feature that previously only allowed North American Gmail users to make phone calls to landlines and mobile phones to 38 new languages.

Last year, we made it possible for those of you in the U.S. to call any mobile phone or landline directly from Gmail and starting today, we are making this available to many more of you who use Gmail outside the U.S. by offering calling in 38 new languages.

Purchasing calling credit has also been made more accessible and can now be acquired in four currencies including U.S. dollars, Euros, Canadian dollars, and British Pounds. Also starting today, the feature will no longer include connection fees so you “only pay for the time you talk”.

In addition to the announcement, Google also confirmed they will be lowering rates in over 150 locations. You can check out a full list of rates on the Google calling rates page here.

The Gmail calling feature will start to roll out to in the new languages over the next few days. Keep an eye out for a small green phone icon in your chat list within your inbox.

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