Appirio's 4 Month Chromebook Pilot - We Rate It a "Go"

Glenn Weinstein, CTO, Appirio

Here at Appirio, we’re wrapping up a four month pilot of Google’s CR-48 Chromebook. We announced back in December 2010 that Google had selected us as one of 11 companies, including American Airlines, Intercontinental Hotels and Kraft, to try out this exciting new concept. Of the 11 pilot sites, Appirio was the only company to issue a CR-48 to every single employee. We also equipped our headquarters office with CR-48s serving as guest check-in, presentation machines, and Internet access kiosks.

Much has been written about the CR-48, intended as a beta device to test out the concept of “operating-system-as-a-service” - a machine dedicated solely to supporting the Chrome OS, which in turn is mostly dedicated to running the Chrome browser along with various apps and extensions. Our focus wasn’t so much on reviewing the CR-48 as a consumer-ready device, or even cataloguing its various features, as much as evaluating the readiness of the overall concept of an essentially browser-only machine for the enterprise, extending the cloud computing concept all the way to the desktop.

Admittedly, Appirio isn’t your average company. We started Appirio in 2006 with a vow to never own a server, so our IT infrastructure is built exclusively on top of public cloud providers such as Salesforce.com, Google Apps, and Amazon Web Services. Companies born during the new cloud era - roughly 2005 and later - have the luxury of a clean sheet of paper on which to design their IT systems. A company founded in 2008, Groupon, has followed the same path we did. You might argue that cloud-era companies such as Appirio and Groupon are more predisposed than a typical company towards making a concept like the Chromebook successful. Nevertheless, we believe our experience is instructive, because it may help answer a rhetorical question that smart CIOs periodically ask themselves: “if I could redesign our systems from scratch today, would I rebuild the same architecture we have today?”

We had fun issuing the CR-48s, handing them out as “room drops” at our annual company offsite in late January in Napa, CA. I had to actually tell our marketing team that we should not treat them as employee gifts, but rather as an officially issued piece of IT equipment. Everyone was getting caught up in the excitement! They went to all job functions - not just consultants, but operations, sales, marketing, engineering, HR, and Finance. We kept some additional inventory on hand for new hires who joined Appirio after the offsite, and more than a few job seekers inquired as to whether they’d be entitled to a CR-48 if they got the position.

One huge advantage we had immediately with our Chromebooks was the lack of a corporate network, firewall, or VPN. With all of our systems in the public cloud, we’ve never found a need for these expensive, non-value-add technologies. Google is actively working to broaden VPN support in the Chromebook, but any existing limitations didn’t affect us. Everyone was able to log into our corporate systems with no hassles on the very first night.

We asked each employee to use the CR-48 throughout their work week, reverting back to their company-issued Dell or MacBook Pros as needed, and to note issues and observations on our internal Google Sites-based wiki. After 90 days, we conducted a company-wide survey to gather feedback and gauge usage.

We were pleasantly surprised to find that even after three months, nearly 60% of employees were still using their CR-48s at least a few times a week. Survey respondents reported overwhelming satisfaction with use of the CR-48 for Gmail, Google Calendar, and Google Docs, which are a huge part of how we run our business. More than 85% of Appirians rated the CR-48’s form factor “just right,” and 90% thought the CR-48 demonstrated the viability of a notebook computer based around a browser and Internet connectivity.

The biggest gripes centered around the hardware itself, including the well-documented trackpad issues and underpowered CPU, as well as lack of a backlit keyboard. The next-generation Chromebooks from Samsung and Acer should resolve these issues.

The primary software gaps that were mentioned included:

• Lack of a desktop sharing (e.g. GoToMeeting) or virtualization solution (to be remedied by Citrix Receiver)
• Easy-to-use screen grab software like SnagIt (although the Aviary extension was good replacement)
• Access to unique client-side tools like the Salesforce.com Data Loader (the Citrix tool could help here)
• A developer IDE akin to Eclipse
• A more robust Cloud Print facility
• PowerPoint (Google Presentations isn’t quite up to snuff yet)
• Offline access to docs (coming back from Google soon, we hear)

From an IT perspective, the Chromebooks were a huge hit, proving the potential impact they can ultimately have. We spend around $200 per month per employee to provide a laptop, software, anti-virus protection, top-level vendor care packages, and IT help desk costs. Typical analyst studies peg the total cost of ownership for a typical enterprise as considerably higher. By contrast, Google announced enterprise pricing for Chromebooks at $28 per user per month - which includes software updates and even physical maintenance. This is one reason we’re looking forward to adding Chromebooks to our Google Apps reseller package for our own customers.

But the soft savings may be even more significant. The Chromebook concept represents a dramatic simplification of IT. Despite owning no servers, Appirio IT is still burdened with some physical hardware requirements, including periodic hard drive imaging; helping employees with hardware and software issues; and security concerns around lost laptops. Chromebooks remove these burdens, allowing IT to focus more time, effort, and expertise at solving business problems. This is a natural extension of the benefit of cloud computing, which transfers the complexity of the data center and server-side software from internal IT to third party vendors. The cloud doesn’t have to end at the server; Chromebooks stretch the cloud all the way to the desktop.

Google stopped by our San Mateo, CA office a few weeks ago and recorded a video documenting Appirio’s experience with the Chromebooks and interviewing a few of our employees. The video is apparently a YouTube hit, with 15,000 views in the first week!

I’ll close out this blog post with actual, unedited quotes from Appirians responding to our internal survey, for your reading pleasure.

• "In terms of benefits of the ultra-secure operating system, there isn't much of an operating system to exploit. The limited complexity makes it easier to ensure there aren't any gaps for would be attackers." - IT Manager
• "I thought I’d miss my big brawny laptop, but my Chromebook made me realize how little I actually use of that machine." - Solutions Marketing Manager
• "I found the Chrome notebook to be my "iPad". A total consumer device. It floated around the house with me and let me easily access our two main systems, Salesforce and Google. I also used it at a few conferences where I wanted quick startup and guest login. Found that it worked beautifully for that and generated a bit of interest too. It saved me a few times in coffee shops that did not have wireless." - Online Marketing Manager
• "At first I was very skeptical and thought I would never use it. What I've found is that I will take the Chrome notebook to places I would never bring my laptop. While waiting for my kids events I answer emails, code SFDC. I've taken it to the top of a mountain, and in the corral. Plus, my family loves it too." - Senior Consultant
• "It's my go to weapon for couch computing." - Consultant
• "Companies will not have to worry about important data being stolen if the laptop is lost. The data is stored on the cloud. Also, this notebook should be cheaper to use and maintain than other types of hardware." - Senior Consultant
• "The Chrome OS gives usability improvements to the user - no longer is a user crippled by a lost/stolen/broken PC...just drop a new Chrome device, login and you're good to go! This is a huge disruption to the enterprise." - Client Manager
• "Love the simplicity and flexibility of having everything in the cloud, with nothing on the laptop itself. I see the cost of the hardware dropping dramatically while at the same time the performance will improve, which makes this a very compelling solution for large enterprises." - Practice Director

Social, Mobile, Cloud - You Need All 3

Ryan Nichols

You know something is going to be big when the analysts start comparing it to electricity.

We saw cloud computing reach that point in 2008, when Nicholas Carr made his famous analogy in "The Big Switch." We saw mobile reach that point last year, when Mary Meeker predicted that mobile devices would quickly become the #1 way of getting on the internet, and compared the adoption of iPads and iPhones to the adoption of electricity.

Now, social computing has officially reached that point in the hype cycle: Gartner analyst Chris Fletcher is comparing it to electricity here at Jive's "New Way" tour in San Francisco, using the analogy of water mills being disrupted by a "New Way" of working. Back then: electricity. Today: social software.

"Social software is going to be the next big thing in enterprise apps," said Fletcher. "We're not going to throw away our ERP systems-- that's not going to happen, and it shouldn't. But we're seeing a new type of electricity coming into the industry that's changing how we communicate with each other and with our customers."

Here at Appirio, we get excited about what happens when the social, mobile and cloud trends come together in the enterprise. For example, here’s a video from late last year for what can happen when social cloud applications are accessible on any device.

Of course, not every enterprise is convinced that these 3 things go so naturally together. Tony Zingale, CEO of Jive, offered this perspective on how their enterprise clients are thinking about the cloud:

“We host Jive for thousands of customers, but we recognize that there's a whole class of companies that aren't ready for the cloud,” said Tony. “In particular companies dealing with PID, HIPPA, financial regulations, workers council issues in Germany, and the list goes on and on. We think that the private cloud will make its way into the enterprise, but in the meantime, we're not religious about it. We're not parochial about it. We do both-- it’s harder for us, it’s more expensive for us, but the market is asking for it. And we're the only vendor who does that.”

While we love what Jive is doing in the social enterprise, I have to point out that these objections to the cloud are all complete red herrings--- Appirio has worked with dozens of companies in industries ranging from healthcare to financial services on cloud applications that handle very sensitive data. Cloud apps can be architected to navigate the constraints of nearly any regulatory, privacy, or information security environment.

And you really do need the capabilities of cloud services to make the most of mobile & social in the enterprise. Tony acknowledges that there is a heavy cost to Jive's hybrid deployment model-- that’s why Jive is actively moving customers towards cloud deployments, and offers more and more of their capabilities as multi-tenant services.

One very interesting thing that Jive is doing to bring social computing to the cloud is using the Open Social standard to act as a "container" for true cloud applications, including apps that Appirio is building to bring information from cloud apps like salesforce.com into a Jive community (our app was shown on stage at today's event!).

This is the same technology that we use to bring salesforce.com to Google Apps. And at an Open Social Summit the other week, I saw a demo of how these same types of Open Social gadgets could also run across multiple mobile devices. Now there's potential for a solution provider like Appirio to write a single gadget that allows people to work with their critical business data wherever people want to work-- in their Google email, in their Jive social community, or on their mobile devices.

Seeing mobile, social, AND cloud come together in the enterprise to change how people work, driven by a community of developers and standards like Open Social... now THAT's something that truly deserves to be compared to electricity.

The Merits of Cloud Management - A Customer Q&A with Glocap Search

By Sara Campbell

Customer stories are by far the best way to explain how cloud technology is changing the face of business. Today, I’m excited to share an interview with Christina Guerland from Glocap Search, a recent recipient of Appirio’s Cloud Pioneer Award which recognizes the change agents and champions inside our customer base who are making a real impact on their businesses with cloud solutions.

Glocap is a premier search firm dedicated to serving the specialized recruiting needs of clients in various industries. The company turned to Appirio to deploy multiple applications on the Force.com platform, and to help maintain and continuously improve those systems post-implementation. Christina is a vice president at Glocap and works directly with the CEO on a myriad of firm-wide projects.

Q: What business problem was Glocap Search trying to solve?
A: We were looking to replace our multi-faceted proprietary recruiting system. We had a desire to outsource the ornery aspects of ongoing system maintenance and, at the same time, leverage software that was specific to our needs yet still highly customizable.

Q: Why did you choose cloud platforms for your core recruiting engine?
A: After many months of research we found cloud solutions to be the most flexible. Given the “openness” of the cloud, we felt confident that we would be able to accomplish all future objectives that may become a high priority. For example, we have a strong desire to connect our “front end” recruiting application with our “back end” accounting and believe this can be tackled in a future project.

Q: Why did you choose Appirio?
A: Appirio was recommended to us by salesforce.com. Appirio shared their expertise and helped us evaluate all solutions we were considering; the team worked diligently to identify any gaps between our then-current system and the prospects to ensure proper vetting and minimize the surprises during implementation. Appirio was our partner throughout the shopping process and ultimately our hand-holders though the entire implementation project. They developed all of the custom code we use and we are also using Appirio’s Cloud Management team for ongoing support and enhancements.

Q: What was the implementation process like?
A: The implementation process was incredibly complex given the nuances of our then-current system and lack of documentation. We were using multiple applications on the Force.com platform in addition to custom code written by Appirio to accomplish all of our use cases.

Q: How are you managing the new system in place?
A: I am the primary contact for anything related to our cloud system. This is possible because Appirio’s team is assisting us with feature enhancements and any new development on the platform. We chose to use Appirio’s Cloud Management services because we wanted to be sure to support our users as they adjusted to a brand new system. We also understood that there may have been some aspects we missed in the implementation so we wanted to be able to respond quickly to requests. Appirio’s Cloud Management team helps with the more technical adjustments (workflows, triggers, setup of automated data clean-up processes, updates to visual force pages, etc), freeing up my time to assist the management team and coach our recruiters on using the system for revenue-generating activities.

Q: What advice do you have for others looking to implement/use cloud solutions?
A: I highly encourage others to investigate how a cloud-based solution might work for their business. The options available to you are abundant and will continue to grow. While the process of transitioning from your current system can be nerve-racking, the scalability of adopting a cloud-based solution will be worth the energy.

Google I/O through the Eyes of an Enterprise

Ryan Nichols


A lot of the news coming out of Google’s annual developer conference seems targeted at the consumer market-- up on the keynote stage, at least, there was a lot more talk of how to use Google’s platforms to power games, music, and movies than there was of enterprise applications (don’t worry, we’ll have a separate post on Chromebooks).

So what did a bunch of enterprise-focused folks like us get out of the last two days? A lot. Off the keynote stage, of course, there was a ton of content directly targeted at the enterprise, including some exciting announcements around Google App Engine and Google Apps Script, and great momentum for Google Apps and the Google Apps Marketplace. But even on the keynote stage, we saw a lot to like.

Seeing I/O through the lens of an enterprise requires remembering that Google’s greatest impact on companies has almost always come from innovation originally intended for individuals. All it takes is a little imagination to see how this week’s major announcements will be game-changers for companies deciding to “go Google.”

Here’s a summary of what we saw, and how we imagine this applying in the enterprise:

We saw I/O turning into a mobile app dev conference. We imagine Google using this momentum to help enterprises “Go Google.”
There’s no denying that Android is the hottest thing going for Google right now in the war for developers. And that was reflected in the content of I/O-- a full morning of keynotes, lots of announcements, and a full floor of the conference. So far, this momentum has been driven by consumer adoption-- while there have been over 100 million Android activations and many analysts list Android as the most adopted mobile platform, it still trails Blackberry, Windows, and iOS in explicit enterprise support, admits Google. This makes sense-- IT support always trails consumer adoption, and Android’s adoption has accelerated faster that IT’s ability to support it.

As enterprise IT is increasingly asked to support the devices that their employees bring to work, there’s an opportunity for Google to use the success of Android to drive adoption of the rest of Google’s Cloud Platform in the enterprise. Employees who use Android devices will want to use Google Apps for communication and collaboration, and will appreciate Android Apps written to connect with Google App Engine. Today, Google largely talks to the enterprise about their $50 email solution. Tomorrow, Google (and its partners!) will talk to the enterprise about a complete solution for the 3 items at the top of their 2012 agenda: mobile, social, and the cloud.

We saw Android @ Home and Android Accessories. We imagined an open platform for cloud-connected field service devices.
On the main stage, Google connected an Android phone to an exercise bike, and allowed conference attendees to use an Android tablet to control a life-size labyrinth game. They showed how Android can be used to manage your home stereo, and even your lighting system.

We imagined those same capabilities being used to make Android the ultimate field service platform for the “internet of things.” We’re working with one company that’s trying to enable their field engineers with a rich set of cloud-based applications that feed off data taken from devices installed at client sites around the globe. It would be very powerful to have an open, standards based platform like Android to build this solution.

We saw Google Music and Movie Rentals. We imagined seamless cloud/mobile interoperability for the enterprise.
Google Music and Google’s movie rentals are both great demonstrations of how cloud services can work well with native mobile applications to provide users with a great experience, whether online or off. Google Music, for example, is smart about how it caches locally the music you are likely to listen to so that music is always available.

We imagine these capabilities being applied to all sorts of enterprise applications. Imagine if you had that same intelligence applied to thousands of documents you have stored in the cloud, or if it were as easy to purchase and access proprietary research reports as it is to rent a movie. There’s a lot of opportunity to bring together the power and elasticity of cloud services with the immediacy of a mobile device-- for both consumer devices and enterprise.

We saw web apps powerful enough to run the world’s most popular games. We imagined web apps powerful enough to displace Microsoft Office.
The day 2 keynote highlighted a host of new browser capabilities in Chrome that now make it possible to run the world’s most popular games as web applications-- including the ever-popular Angry Bird. Last year, we saw Quake running as a web app. Games are a fantastic edge case for web apps because they require instant response time and a compelling user experience.

If games are ready to run as web apps, then surely we’re ready to displace the world’s most widely used thick client app-- Microsoft Office. Rich internet applications are now able to provide users with the same level of instant responsiveness that they’re used to on the client-- we imagine this capability being fully realized in Google Apps to make usability a reason TO move to Google’s document creation tools instead of an objection to be overcome.

In short, we were thrilled to see Google give us yet another glimpse into the future of the cloud. We’ll enjoy that future in our personal lives for sure, but this innovation no longer needs to stop at your company’s front door-- there’s a lot to love in Google’s vision that’s relevant for enterprises everywhere.

Where does the cloud end? - Blogging for Computerworld

Glenn Weinstein

When we talk about the "public cloud," most of us are referring to the hosted, multi-tenant servers that software-as-a-service (SaaS) vendors use to run their systems. In recent years, the generally accepted definition has expanded to include the servers hosting platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) as well.

But does the cloud end where these servers open up ports to users? That depends on whom you ask. Some cloud vendors assume or require that you have more than just a browser; we're seeing, in some cases, a significant set of additional software requirements. What's that, you say? What “software” requirements? Shouldn't the public cloud require nothing more than a free, modern browser and a (preferably high-speed) Internet connection?

Read more...

Making Sure the Force of Technology Innovation is at Your Back

Narinder Singh

Today, we wanted to take a step back from the specifics of cloud computing and understand the broader context that drives disruption overall and the special implications of today’s innovation.

Disruption - an Age Old Tradition Reinvented

For much of the twentieth centuries businesses drove technology innovation. Machine power, energy and utilities, communications, transportation and logistics - progress in these areas was driven by attempts to improve business operations. Later derivative technologies benefited consumers through new products and services. When disruptions occurred, they were most often businesses competing with other businesses. Clayton Christen concisely chronicles the nature of many of these in the Innovator’s Dilemma - citing examples ranging from mini steel mills to floppy disk drives.

Then, sometime around the turn of the century the Internet emerged and changed the essence of technological change. For the first time in history the world was connected and interactive. New sources of collaboration and communication allowed people to work together more easily and broadly than ever before. All of a sudden, both innovation and disruption had new sources. We began to see innovation begin in the consumer sector and then drive back into the operations of businesses. As consumers we experienced a technology driven renaissance - suddenly we were able to manage a financial portfolio, buy movie tickets, compare alternative routes of travel in real time, find products and services in an instant, communicate via video and voice for free, share massive amounts of news, pictures and video with anyone around the world and much much more. The “green screen” terminal-like experience we had at work felt like a recurring bad dream.

Disruption also came from new places. A struggling computer company named after a fruit decided it could produce music players, then telephones and sell to individuals - accidentally disrupting the landscape of corporate collaboration. The iPhone stormed into the lives of business through the hands of employee consumers who rejected being downgraded to last generation technology in their workplace.

Technology innovation became an unpredictable force of nature.

Technology Disruption Lead to Faster Industry Change


Any leap forward in innovation disrupts existing industries. But now, often without any specific intent or design, industries and products became increasingly important - or void of value - almost overnight. The transition from records to tape took decades, from tape to CD to digital less than one. Newspapers, video rentals, bookstores and many others are undergoing a ruthless reinvention of their industries - all without a traditional competitor or rival.

This faster rate of change is even impacting the very nature of technology creation itself. Technologies like cloud computing and social collaboration networks are trying to connect businesses and innovation in the same way as the Internet connected individuals just a decade earlier. For the first time, these tools enable a virtual worldwide labor force that operates in many contexts as effectively as co-located teams.

For example, enterprise business systems historically had a life-cycle of 5-10 years. In that time, entire labor forces of potentially millions of workers organized around learning the usage, programming languages, and best practices of these systems. Today, cloud computing driven business applications (e.g. salesforce.com and Workday) make new innovations available instantly to every customer several times a year. How companies take advantages of these to create competitive differentiation may be all that separate success from failure. As a result an industry of millions of people must completely re-examine how to organize and train its people for this dynamic change.

Technology Innovation Makes it Easier to Start and Scale a Business


Contributing to the high rate of industry change is the ability of technology innovation to allow businesses to start and reach scale faster and more efficiently than ever. Almost overnight a business can:

• Get created - legal advice, incorporation, recruiting, payroll, advertising, and every other daunting activity can be easily accessed.
• Go from local to national to worldwide - Just a website and online advertising, or marketplaces like eBay have allowed entire economies of small businesses to move beyond just their local geographies.
• Access technology previously reserved for large enterprises - Marketing, sales, customer services, social networks, and business operations capabilities are available even to newest of businesses - allowing them to compete on both their product and service.

This, combined, with the economic struggles the past several years, have resulted in US small business creation rising to a fifteen year high. In addition, over that same period of time, small businesses created almost ⅔ of all new jobs.

Yet, the rules above apply for people all over the world. So these technology innovations also opened the doors for small businesses and individual workers to experience global competition - faster than ever before.

Special, But Still “Just a Tool”


Despite its many unique characteristics technology innovation is still just a tool. Its like a special hammer that is constantly changing and able to do more and more - if in the hands of the right operator. This applies even to cloud computing, its still a matter of what you do with it. However, the cloud is a tool, like fire is a tool. Treating it just like artifacts that came before it will badly miss its point and potential. Ultimately, in each of our companies, we need to create an environment where everyone internalizes the inevitability of change and embraces evaluating new tools and techniques.

Consumers can quickly adopt every new technology and simply later reject it. For businesses it's a more nuanced process. Organizations must simultaneously encourage and find a way to drive innovation, but still be highly pragmatic in key operational areas. Even more daunting is that in most cases, it is not possible to broadly separate the places to innovate from the places to be deliberate. In most cases this two pronged approach must be applied within every area.

Apply this to our often discussed topic of cloud computing - a technology area that can deliver results an order of magnitude faster and more nimbly than its predecessors. Organizations need to help their businesses owners and technologists understand whats possible so that the right lens can be placed on each part of an initiative. It requires technologists be more intertwined with the business than ever before, and that business users better understand concepts like data, process and analysis. Then together, it becomes possible to understand what’s important (value) and whats possible (cost) so an effective portfolio of actions can be executed. Ultimately, cloud computing will become an inevitability for everyone, but success through the transition will vary dramatically and become either a tailwind or headwind on your entire business.