Editor's note: Today we’ll hear from Albert V. Leems, CIO at Contoso, a manufacturing firm headquartered near Seattle.As a subsidiary of a traditional software company, we went against the grain and switched all 1,200
Contoso employees across nine continents to the cloud. After
previously considering Google Apps, we were finally convinced to make the move when Google Docs began supporting the
Corsiva font. I still can’t find track changes in Docs, but now we can use Corsiva from anywhere, on any device. We decided against Microsoft
® Office 365 beta, because we’d heard for years that beta software was
too risky.
Before the switch our work maintaining IT systems was
never done. Now it's easy. And when people still need
Clippy, they can write TPS reports without attachments through
Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. We’re still waiting for offline Docs, so in the meantime we’re using
TiSP to access the Internet in our remote locations and corporate jets.
Since moving to Gmail, HR violations and after-hours sharing of
Rebecca Black videos have gone down by 76 percent thanks to
Mail Goggles, and
Old Snakey has doubled our IT satisfaction scores. Our teams are especially excited to start communicating more efficiently using body language alone with
Gmail Motion.
Google Apps helps give our business the agility and fast decision-making of a startup, and now our parent company is considering the switch as well. We’ll be sure to pay another visit here to share their story if they go all in.
Posted by Albert V. Leems, Chief Information Officer at Contoso
