Why I’m Looking Forward to Google I/O Next Year

For BetterCloud, this year’s Google I/O was vastly different from the 2012 conference. Last year, I was the sole BetterCloud representative. This year, six team members attended. Last year, we had yet to publicly launch our product. This year, we have a product used by nearly 10 million people. Last year, we hadn’t established any formal relationships with Google Apps resellers. This year, we’re working with some of the leading resellers in the ecosystem.

While it was great to get a sense of the amount BetterCloud has grown and achieved in the last year, a few things about I/O remained constant – the sense of community and the inspiration I always come away with.

Community

Am I guilty of sprinting to get into the epic three-hour keynote on the first day of I/O? Perhaps. Did I record the near stampede on my Google Glass? Maybe. Do I regret either? Not really.

During the … Read more →

Welcome to Atlanta

Last week, BetterCloud’s New York team spent the week at our Atlanta office in the Atlanta Tech Village and it inspired me to put my thoughts about the city and the tech scene down in a blog post.

Southern Roots

BetterCloud has always had two homes, one in New York City and the other in Atlanta. We knew from the beginning keeping the offices and teams connected would be a challenge, but after more than a year and a half of working at both ends of the east coast, we’ve maintained our groove. Our dev team calls Atlanta home while Marketing, Support and our leadership team have established BetterCloud’s headquarters in the Big Apple.

Atlanta has always had a special place in my heart – I graduated from Emory and spent 7 years working in the city before moving back to New York. Atlanta has incredible engineering talent, great schools, restaurants and culture, but the city’s underdeveloped VC scene has caused too many good technologists and … Read more →

First Impressions and Thoughts on Google Glass’ Explorer Program

#328

At last year’s Google I/O, Google’s annual developer conference, I had the opportunity to preorder Google Glass. As a huge Google fan and the CEO of a company that focuses 100% on Google, preordering was a no brainer (as it was for pretty much everyone else at the conference). After placing my order, I was handed a small rectangular piece of glass engraved with the number 328 and that was it for 10 months.

glass-328

Over the next ten months, I read countless articles and heard endless speculation about Glass, but the details were scarce as to when the product would actually be ready for “explorers” (the beta tester group). Finally, after patiently waiting almost a year, I received the following email, which instructed me to set up a fitting appointment and select the desired Glass color. After consulting my wife and team and browsing dozens of photos online, I opted for the original, charcoal.

Read more →

Google Apps vs. Office 365: Why Google Will Win the Enterprise

Since our founding, it’s been a core mission of BetterCloud’s to spread the word about Google Apps and evangelize for the platform. And after raising a Series A this past January, we’ve stepped up our hiring process, which has led candidates to ask why I’m betting my career and company on Google Apps. This was a question we encountered throughout the fundraising process and I’m sure it’s frequently asked of other ISVs and Google Apps resellers. While I’m obviously biased towards Google Apps, I do wholeheartedly believe the platform will win.

Just three years ago, I was a power Microsoft Exchange and Outlook user and frankly hadn’t considered Google Apps as a serious enterprise platform until I started working at a Google Apps reseller. It took me about a week to get up to speed with Apps and I very quickly realized the value in the platform. Since then, you could say I’ve gone a bit over the top … Read more →

Growing Our Team

BetterCloudSince founding BetterCloud in November 2011, our team has more than doubled and we’re still growing! Before the end of the year, we have plans to double the size of both our development and customer advocate teams in Atlanta and New York City respectively.

What’s Propelling Our Growth?

We’ve built a great product, used by more than 17,000 organizations with 7.5 million users, but there’s still so much to be done. In the next sixth months, we plan to release an entirely new UI, formally introduce a new management console for Google Apps resellers and roll out paid plans for FlashPanel, our flagship product — and much more.

Bolstered by the support of our growing customer base and a recent round of Series A funding, we’re moving full speed ahead with team BetterCloud.

What Makes a Great Team Member?

Our team members are:

Hard working Smart Passionate … Read more →

How to Increase User Adoption of Google Apps

When organizations make the move to Google Apps, they often overlook the importance of user training and change management. Failing to help users transition from a legacy system to Google Apps can be detrimental to your company’s long term success on the Apps platform and can leave employees confused, discouraged and resentful of your transition to the cloud. On the other hand, successful user training programs can have a positive impact on employee productivity, collaboration and adoption of Google Apps.

To help you build a user training program and increase user adoption of Google Apps across the board, we created the following flowchart.

HowToIncreaseUserAdoptionOfGoogleApps

This flowchart was made using Lucidchart.

Making the Grade: FlashPanel and Google Apps

Growing Up Google

board-2Some of Google Apps’ biggest proponents are educational institutions. From small k-12 programs to the largest colleges and universities in the world, schools of all kinds welcome Google Apps for Education with open arms. Sure the price tag – or lack thereof – is enticing, but year after year IT administrators, faculty and students are delighted with the product’s unmatched messaging, storage and collaboration capabilities.

In fact, when we launched our management and security tool, FlashPanel, this past July, we never could have predicted its popularity among educational institutions. And now the very same tools used by some of our largest enterprise customers to secure and scale their businesses are benefitting school admins on a daily basis.

Changing the Way Thousands of Schools Use Google Apps

KIPP LA Schools has been a Google Apps customer since 2009 and even piloted the Read more →

The Path to Google Drive Enlightenment

Google Drive provides incredible tools for collaboration in the cloud, but as with any new technology, there are new challenges. To understand these new challenges, we’ve talked to hundreds of FlashPanel customers around the world. We’ve listened to the issues they’ve run into and learned about the kind of visibility and control they need to be effective at managing their domain’s use of Drive. Some customers have told us about their goals of getting rid of Microsoft Office, while others are looking for the ability to monitor and taken action on potential Drive exposures.

Through these conversations and BetterCloud’s own use of Google Drive, we’ve discovered best practices for operating in the application. We hope our learnings enlighten you and encourage your organization to go further with Google Drive.

Follow the decision tree below to gain Google Drive enlightenment.

This decision tree was made using Lucidchart. To find out how we use Lucidchart in other areas of our business, visit … Read more →

Albritton Williams – A BetterCloud Case Study

In 2010 construction management firm Albritton Williams made the move from Microsoft Exchange to Google Apps. The platform has enabled AW to bring communication to employees working at projects on site, away from the main office and coupled with FlashPanel’s management tools, the company is able to make full use of the Google Apps suite. Read the case study for more on AW’s use of FlashPanel and Google Apps.

Employees: 20 Founded: 1928 Industry: Construction Management Website: aw-gc.com FlashPanel Customer Number: 4,065

Founded in 1928, Albritton Williams is a full service contractor and construction management company based in Tallahassee, Florida. AW specializes in commercial and residential construction and small projects. The company emphasizes high quality and value in all its work and achieves these goals through a team approach.

Increasing Collaboration through Google Apps

For any team to succeed, communication is vital. So to increase collaboration and communication among different team members – those … Read more →