Viocorp broadcasts clear signal for growth with Google Apps

Editor’s note: Today’s guest blogger is Ian Gardiner, CEO of Viocorp, a leading provider of digital broadcast video solutions in Asia Pacific. See what other organisations that have gone Google have to say.



Viocorp has provided digital broadcast video solutions to local and global corporations, governments, and media companies since 2002. The video webcasts we host, such as the Rolex Sydney Hobart Yacht Race or World Youth Day, often attract millions of viewers worldwide. We manage the back-end infrastructure to encode and deliver video of these events online, giving businesses an easy way to publish these digital media webcasts. Our customers don’t have to install anything on their end. They just buy a username and password and we deliver our services through the web browser.



Prior to Google Apps, we used a legacy on-premise solution to support our communication needs. Exchange had several shortcomings which became especially obvious as our business started to expand. Employees working from home and on the road had frequent problems with mobile email access and with synchronisation of email across multiple devices. Our IT staff spent hundreds of hours each year managing and maintaining our email server when they could have been improving our video software solutions.



As a company that provides its services entirely online, we saw Google Apps for Business as a natural fit. Deployment was very easy and there were no major issues since Google Apps supports user choice, enabling us to have a gradual transition. Initially most of our users chose to maintain Microsoft Outlook as their email client, but today, given the option between Gmail or Microsoft Outlook, 90 percent of our employees choose Gmail.



We’ve also adopted Google Calendar to set up meetings and reserve shared resources such as conference rooms. Google Talk and Google Docs let us create, share, and collaborate faster than ever, moving projects forward as teams connected by real time information. Most importantly, Google Apps lets our employees work from anywhere with any smartphone or web-enabled tablet. When I’m in transit to client meetings, I can use my phone to email, chat, or even review my presentation in Google Docs. And every month we get new features that support innovation and efficiency within the company—at no extra cost.



Compared with our previous solution, managing Google Apps is incredibly easy. We think moving to Google Apps saves Viocorp well over 200 hours (approx. 5 weeks) of IT work annually, with no drawbacks in service or uptime. Although we definitely saved money by switching to Google Apps, the real value for us goes far beyond reduced costs. The question was, will Google Apps allow us to work more effectively? And when we ask our employees, the answer is “yes, without a doubt”.

Posted by Ian Gardiner, CEO of Viocorp

Coast to coast, more Australian universities Go Google

With the recent announcement that hundreds of thousands of UK students are moving to Google Apps, there are now more than six million students, staff, and faculty around the world using Google at school. In the US, a recent survey reported that of those universities that had converted to hosted student email, 56% are going Google. The trend is similar here, with more and more Australian universities getting on to Google Apps.

Back in 2008, we blogged that the NSW Department of Education had successfully deployed Gmail to over 1.2 million students, joining Macquarie University and a number of other Australian schools in switching to Google. Since that time I'm pleased to say that more Australian universities have gone Google, including the University of Adelaide, University of Southern Queensland, Monash University and the University of Western Australia, who've all made the decision to offer our powerful set of communication and collaboration tools to their students.

For the University of Western Australia, implementing Google Apps for its 30,000 students meant offering a compelling set of features while allowing staff to focus on their core competencies. "The service we could offer for students through Google Apps was much better than we could reasonably hope to provide ourselves. Our staff can now concentrate on the things we do best - serving the teaching and research needs of the University," said John Arfield, University Librarian and Director (Information Management). "Providing a good experience for our students is a very high priority at UWA. The students are delighted, and so are we."

Over at the University of Adelaide, the ITS team who implemented Google Apps for their 16,000 students in early 2009 recently scooped the primary award at the Universities Services and Resources Annual Awards for Excellence (pictured below is the University of Adelaide project team managed by Bianca Velder (third from right) receiving their award on November 19 this year). Google Apps went live for the University of Adelaide on March 16, after a 5 month planning and development period. The University saw a 50% take up rate within two weeks of go-live, students were enthusiastic to make the switch from the previous mail system to Google Apps.


"Google Apps allows the university to deliver seamlessly integrated email, calendaring and IM services to students with significant capacity, and the migration has been a huge success for the university" says Virginia Deegan, director, infrastructure, property and technology. "The strength of Google Apps Education edition lies in the ease of implementation and the ability to deliver an integrated and flexible platform for collaboration and communication technologies in the future. All at no cost to the University, and that was a compelling story to us.

"Post implementation surveys show a very high student satisfaction with Google Apps. Many students offer suggestions how we can add value to the student experience, by increasing the functionality of Google Apps as a teaching and learning environment. Google Apps is rapidly becoming part of the DNA of the university, and that is exactly what we hoped for".

Across in Melbourne, at Australia's largest university Monash, Alan McMeekin, CIO and Executive Director IT Services Division is very pleased with the outcome for their 58,000 students and staff. "Monash has a commitment to principles of equity and diversity, so accessibility of services for students is important. We want to remove the blocks that prevent students from learning and growing. Google is one of the few products that provides a html version for email that works well with assistive technology." For Alan, demand from students and the support Google offered with the implementation were two key ingredients in a successful implementation. "The demand from students to participate in the pilot was encouraging, with over two hundred students registering in a weekend. Google have been great to work with on the implementation, providing dedicated resources and making changes where necessary to ensure Monash's move to Google is successful."

Lisa Marsh, Manager of the Flexible Learning and Teaching Program at Monash, leads the team that builds and runs the award winning my.monash portal for staff and students. In partnership with Calvin Chow, IT Analyst and Project lead, Lisa lead the project to migrate students to Google Apps. "The team are excited by the move to Google Apps. Calendar, email space, and collaboration tools have always been high demand items with students. We're also working on integrating Google Apps with other core university services via the my.monash portal, so there's lots of excitement around the potential to enhance the student experience. It's great to be running a project that is overwhelmingly positive. The pilot was oversubscribed by students. We're already getting 'thank you' email".



We look forward to working closely with more Australian universities and making 2010 a year in which even more students across Australia get the benefits of going Google.

Posted by Andrew Mitchell, Google Apps team