Why Google Apps?

A Message from Academic Technology 
We are pleased to announce that we've chosen Google Apps for our new email and calendar platform. You will soon be receiving information regarding our transition to this new platform. Our plan is to begin full-scale migration to Google Apps within the first few weeks of the Spring 2013 semester. At that time, you will receive your new Google Apps account information and will be able to sign in and begin using Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, and all your other apps, right away. We hope the information provided in these pages will assist you in making this an easy and exciting transition. You will be hearing more as the transition draws closer.

What is Google Apps?

Google Apps is a suite of web-based messaging and collaboration applications that Google hosts on their own servers. Google provides these applications as a "service," rather than as software you have to download and install. To access these applications, you simply use a web browser on any computer that's connected to the Internet.  

Why did we choose Google Apps?

Based on our recent growth and cost trends, we looked for an email and calendar solution that could provide us with the following benefits:

  • Lower infrastructure costs — All your email will be stored securely on Google's servers, so we'll no longer have to maintain email servers on-site
  • Ability to consolidate our platforms — We can eliminate redundancy by moving all of our email and calendar platforms to Google Apps
  • Lower support costs — Because Google hosts the email and calendar services, there's no more email client software to maintain on each individual campus computer
  • Innovative solutions — We can leverage the ongoing creative and technical solutions of the Google Apps platform to provide our campus community with powerful, easy-to-use tools to facilitate productivity
  • Highly scalable environment — With Google Apps, our email capacity will grow automatically to satisfy our needs, and we'll avoid the complexity of internal systems
  • Access to services from anywhere, at anytime — A key benefit of this solution is that we can access email, contacts, and calendar information from any computer or mobile device with an Internet connection, from anywhere in the world
  • More collaboration features — With Google's next-generation applications, we can collaborate with colleagues, students and friends more easily and efficiently than ever before
  • Instant messaging — Because Google Apps includes Google Talk, we can now implement an instant messaging system for our community

What does Google Apps include?

Your new Google Apps account will include the following services: 




Gmail
 Google Calendar Google Talk Google Docs Google Sites

  • Lots of storage — You get a full 25 GB of online storage for your email (much more than the 60 MB you have now - that's over 400 times more storage for each of us!), so you can archive all of your email online. You'll no longer need to worry about deleting messages or saving them in offline folders.
  • Enhanced message organization and retrieval — With Gmail, you'll spend less time managing folders and searching for messages. For example, you can add one or more tags, or "labels," to your messages to organize and store them more efficiently. And with the Google-powered search feature, you can find any message quickly and easily, whether it's in your Inbox or stored in your message archive.
  • Easier calendar sharing — Google Calendar lets you and your colleagues quickly and easily share your calendars with each other and specify the details you want to show. Calendar sharing is a great way to keep each other informed about your schedules. Now it's easier than ever to find out if someone is in a meeting, in class, or on vacation.
  • Integrated chat — With the Google Talk instant messaging application, you can communicate instantly with classmates, group members or faculty right from the Gmail interface. In addition, all your chats are automatically saved, so you can always retrieve important information later.
  • Real-time collaboration — Using Google Docs, you can create documents, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, and more, that you and your friends and colleagues can view and edit at the same time. You can still use your Microsoft Office products as needed, but now you'll have more options for storing and collaborating on your documents. 
  • Easy-to-build team web sites — With Google Sites, you have the ability to quickly publish a robust team web site on which to gather all sorts of shared information, such as documents, spreadsheets, presentations, files, and videos. You can even embed Google calendars, discussion forums, and other gadgets on your site!