BBVA Employees Dump Microsoft Exchange for Google Apps
January 13, 2012
By Miguel Leiva-Gomez, TMCnet Contributor
BBVA, a bank based in Spain, just announced that it will start migrating from its old system on Microsoft Exchange to a new cloud-based environment with Google (News - Alert) Apps, including Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Groups, Videos and Sites.
The bank will begin the migration in phases, the first phase involving 35,000 of its employees. By the end of this year, its 110,000 employees in 26 countries will hopefully be using Google Apps exclusively. Microsoft (News - Alert) has definitely lost a major source of income with this migration, and this will also be the biggest contract that Google has worked out with this part of its business and in cloud computing in general.
Google Apps represents a suite of online browser-accessible applications that do not require any special third-party software on the computer like Microsoft Office. At this point, four million people are using Google Apps, but Microsoft still has the biggest piece of the cake, with 750 million customers. If MS doesn't do something soon, though, it seems like Google will snag victory from its hands quickly, as more people are considering using their application suite.
This isn't the first time someone decided to stray away from Microsoft for Google's attractive features and portability. UC-Berkeley, California, decided to go with Google Apps when weighing the differences between the two a couple of weeks ago. Officials from Berkeley wrote on this, saying that “while both products are feature-rich and offer advantages over our current environment, the analysis concluded that the Google offering was the better overall fit for the campus at this time.”
Their analysis included benchmark measurements of the performance of both applications. Microsoft's Office 365 actually scored better than Google Apps with its calendar, its contract terms, and security. The university chose Google Apps, however, for its ease of use, ease of integration, and familiarity of students and faculty with the system.
BBVA CEO José Olalla wrote on Google Enterprise blog: “Integrating the Google Apps for Business suite with our own tools will allow us to introduce a new way of working where employees have access to all the information they need with just one click, no matter where they are or what kind of device they use, and can reap the benefits of using advanced collaboration tools.”
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Miguel Leiva-Gomez is a professional writer with experience in computer sciences, technology, and gadgets. He has written for multiple technology and travel outlets and owns his own tech blog called The Tech Guy, where he writes educational, informative, and sometimes comedic articles for an audience that is less versed in technology.Edited by Jennifer Russell