Google Apps Meets CIOs at Google Atmosphere Conferences

Google Apps leaders, including Google Enterprise VP Amit Singh, are showing CIOs (chief information officers) plenty of love during a road show called Atmosphere. The event series — apparently running through October 2012 — stretches across the Americas, Europe and Asia Pacific markets. Couple Atmosphere with a Google Apps Reseller road show, and it’s clear the company remains fiercely committed to its SaaS applications and mobile services.

In a blog describing Atmosphere, Singh said CIOs are attending the events because they want their employees “to work in collaborative environments without being tethered to their desks, and their IT departments are eager to shift resources from maintaining old technology to developing new ones.”

And in a single paragraph, Singh nicely summarized the shift from client-server to cloud computing and cloud services:

“There was a time when business technology was at the forefront of innovation and productivity. Industries began to standardize around certain platforms that automated an individual’s work. But with complicated enterprise agreements, customer lock-in and limited competition, business technology lost its edge. IT professionals stopped innovating and relied on a handful of vendors who designed bloated software that was released every few years. At the same time, consumer technology took off. With the power of massive data centers, modern browsers and smart mobile devices at their fingertips, people found it easier than ever to communicate, create, and collaborate. Many people have fallen in love with the simplicity and freedom of these services, and they want to use them everywhere.”

To fulfill those needs, Singh said Google continues to enhance and expand cloud services like Google Drive, Google Apps for Business,  Chrome for Business and Google Compute Engine. He said five million businesses, 66 of the top 100 U.S. universities, and government institutions in 45 of the 50 U.S. states have Gone Google and embraced Google Apps.

The key takeaway: When skeptics like The Wall Street Journal question Google’s commitment to Google Apps, simply take a minute to research how much money Google is spending on road shows, educational seminars and other services to onboard more resellers and customers. Google’s commitment to Google Apps is clear to me.