If you’re about to deploy Google Apps for your business, today is your lucky day. This morning, an official site dedicated to Google Apps Deployment for Enterprise was unveiled.
Broken down into deployment planning and user adoption, the new resource is basically a treasure-trove of information on rolling out Google Apps in your business. It’s targeted specifically at larger organizations; for deployments of less-than 100 users, Google recommends their usual “Getting Started” guide. In the wake of yesterday’s announcement of syncing with Microsoft Outlook, this is just one more reason why Google is getting serious about pushing Apps into larger enterprise deployments.
Deployment Planning
The Deployment Planning section of the site focuses on pre-planning and administration of high performance uses of Google Apps. If you’re getting ready to run a pilot, this is the place for you. In addition to a general pilot guide, there are installation checklists and access to the Google Guides program, a P2P network for users to get training.
User Adoption
Once your pilot is complete and Google Apps deployed, the user adoption portion of the resources will likely be your next step. In addition to basic communications resources for introducing users to what Google Apps is all about, it has multimedia content, FAQs and full documentation.
Why Now?
For most enterprise software, comprehensive documentation and user adoption guides is nothing new. In fact, it’s standard operating procedure.
But Google being what it is, the enormous familiarity – in brand and in user experience – that they enjoyed has largely insulated them from having to provide the kind of detailed support that is commonplace in less well-known vendors.
Until now, that is. No matter how big your brand recognition and loyalty, deploying your apps to an enterprise of thousands is impossible without enhanced resources to walk project planners and administrators through the process.
