Posted by Adam Garrett, President, Fifth Manhattan

Editor's note: Today we hear from, Adam Garrett, president of Dallas-based Fifth Manhattan. Learn how Fifth Manhattan switched to Chromeboxes for a simpler, more affordable desktop computer solution.

When I joined Fifth Manhattan as president in 2014, I wanted to expand our customer base. We provide credit card payment processing services for small to medium-sized businesses and help them cut costs, increase revenue and provide a higher level of customer service. Big nationwide retail chains have substantial marketing budgets, but your local Italian restaurant and auto body shop don’t. That’s where we come in.

One of my first orders of business was to upgrade our aging fleet of desktop computers. The team needed simple, easy to use computers with web access, so we decided to buy one Chromebox and try it out. We were astonished by how simple it was to set up and deploy. After the pilot, we bought Chromeboxes with Chrome device management licenses for each of our 30 employees. Since then, we’ve given a Chromebox to each new hire.

Because of Chrome, we no longer need a traditional IT help desk. Fifth Manhattan has six full-time IT staff members, but they focus on building and managing our internal CRM platform. Before Chrome, they spent hours every week troubleshooting computer crashes. Today, they spend less time managing Chrome and deploying new devices and more time on their core responsibilities. Since we switched to Chromeboxes, we’ve only had one issue with a device — and it was a hardware malfunction, no fault of Chrome.

As a payment processing company, we deal with highly sensitive data like bank account information and social security numbers, so security is critical. We’re required to maintain compliance with PCI regulations governing customer data. As part of this, we limit the number of employees who have access to sensitive internal data and monitor all usage carefully to avoid breaches. Chrome makes this easier to do. Administrators can set up different “organizations,” or teams so they can create customized settings for each team to limit which applications they can access. For example, our telesales team only need to use our web-based CRM tool, so we limit their usage to that, while account managers need access to their Chrome web browser and applications like Gmail and an e-signature solution. In addition, we can turn off incognito mode and disable saving to external flash drives. These settings help us control employee access so we can prevent data breaches and leaks.

Fifth Manhattan employees are now able to work remotely, thanks to Chromebooks and Google Apps. We have five extra managed Chromebooks for employees to use if they’re unable to come into the office because of travel, parental leave or bad weather. As president, I travel often for customer meetings. My Chromebook lasts for more than eight hours, which comes in handy during cross-country flights and long meetings. I can even access my desktop applications remotely from my Chromebook using Chrome remote desktop.

When I joined Fifth Manhattan, I wanted to grow our payment processing business into a thriving enterprise. Google Chrome has helped me scale the business from 35 employees to 100 in two years and makes it easier for everyone to focus on their work, not IT.

Posted by John W. Penney, Creative Director & CEO, BlackDog Advertising


Editor's note: Today we hear from John W. Penney, creative director and CEO of Miami-based BlackDog Advertising. Read how the company used Chrome devices to build engaging hotel kiosks for a major hotel chain.


I’d always wanted to start a business that used technology in creative ways — so I founded BlackDog Advertising in 1989. Since then, design has been at the center of our culture.

Members of the Blackdog Advertising team (from left to right): Jason Carbonell, interactive director, John Penney, founder and creative director and Humberto Abeja, art director

We sell to businesses that use technology to engage customers, so our solutions need to be eye-grabbing and intuitive, elegant and approachable. Devices like the Chromebit and Chromebox align perfectly with our design-first approach and provide both cost-effective and dynamic solutions to expensive static light boxes and point-of-sale ads.

Our team became well-acquainted with the efficiencies of Google productivity tools like Hangouts and Gmail when we switched to Google Apps for Work from Microsoft Office about five years ago. This led us to give Chrome for Work a try, and we saw even greater benefits for collaboration, ease of use and cost. That’s how we discovered that Chrome devices could work really well for our clients in the hotel and tourism industries.

We tested whether we could use a combination of devices and monitors to create compelling interactive signs and quickly realized that we could centrally manage a constant stream of images and video with the Chrome device management console, for pennies on the dollar. The decision to build personalized apps on the Chrome Web Store that could be instantly updated across all of our clients’ kiosks was a no-brainer.

Our client, a major hotel group, posed a challenge that pushed this line of thinking even further. They asked us to build something that would replace the three-ring binders their concierge professionals have used for decades to show hotel guests activities and restaurants they might enjoy. We knew the use of tablets, which they suggested, would be expensive to implement over the long run and instead urged them to explore Chrome devices and touchscreen monitors. The Chromebit and monitor together cost less than a single tablet, but offered the added features of easy content deployment and theft protection. Hotels may carry up to 20 pitch books on hand, costing about $75 each. Our Chromebit kiosks, which can each replace all of a hotel's pitch books, cost no more than $400 — a savings of over $1000 for some hotels.

Chromebit kiosk showcasing area events, activities and attractions for hotel guests

Blending vivid imagery, video and interactive features, Chrome kiosks provide a modern alternative to the three-ring binders concierge professionals used to use when showcasing area events, activities and attractions. And hotel guests can interact with the kiosks on their own to plan or add to their itineraries, even after normal work hours, when the concierge desk is closed.

We can use Chrome to design, test and introduce new solutions that our clients love. It’s reliability, ease of use and affordability make it an attractive option to replace all kinds of signage — not just concierge kiosks. Our clients have requested Chrome for other uses, such as ticket sale kiosks — all possibilities we’re eager to explore. Chrome’s marriage of approachable design and robust technology has created a new revenue stream for us, and we couldn’t be more thrilled to uncover where else Chrome will take us.

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Senior Director, Android and Chrome for Work Product Management


Chromebooks already offer businesses of all sizes a secure platform to get work done. Companies are choosing Chromebooks because they’re easy to maintain, can be centrally managed by IT and have multiple layers of security to protect sensitive data.

Today we’re announcing support for Android apps on Chromebooks — with little to no extra effort on the part of developers — making Chromebooks an even better choice for work.
That means your employees can have access to the broad ecosystem of Android apps in Google Play for Work on their Chromebooks, managed centrally with access controls. So in addition to the speed, simplicity and security of getting work done quickly in web apps, your workforce can run previously unavailable mobile apps on Chrome devices with complete file integration, notifications, offline support and touch input on supported hardware.

More productivity possibilities
Early first-runs with many Android workplace apps including Concur, TripIt and DocuSign, as well as many other productivity apps, look very encouraging. While the 2 million businesses already using Google Apps for Work can view and edit Microsoft Word documents, some may prefer to use Microsoft’s Office software. That’s possible on a Chromebook by installing the Android version of Microsoft Word, for example. And those who supplement Google Hangout meetings with Skype can do so on a Chromebook by using Skype for Android.

Also, this gives users full access to apps that were built for the mobile world. For example, while the web version of Slack already works in the Chrome browser, the Android version of Slack is designed from the ground up for mobile use with support for push notifications, do not disturb rules and quick switching between teams.

If your workforce prefers an Android app to the web version of that software or wants to use an app with offline support, they now have the choice on a Chromebook.

We’re encouraging Android developers of all kinds to see how the application experience adds value for Chromebook users and brings them new opportunities: Now building one app extends from Android phones and tablets up to Chromebooks.

You’re still in control
One of the key benefits of deploying Chrome devices in your workplace is that you can centrally manage them with ease through more than 200 administrative policies. Administrators can manage these Android apps now from that same Chrome admin console.

We’ve added new policies to allow or restrict Android application installations, and you can even allow particular Android apps for certain users and not others.

We’re making the feature available in early June on specific Chrome devices — the Asus Chromebook Flip, Acer Chromebook R11 and Chromebook Pixel (2015 edition) — for developers to try out. Later this year, we’ll add support for many more Chrome devices, detailed here. And if you’re developing in-house Android apps for your business, you can learn more about how to optimize your Android app for Chrome devices here.

Posted by Saswat Panigrahi & Raghu Yarlagadda, Product Managers, Chrome for Work



Editor's note: We’re currently hosting a multi-city Chrome roadshow in locations near you to explain how Chrome benefits your business and to show the latest Chrome for Work devices.


Businesses of every size around the world are taking a lesson from the education market and adopting Chromebooks thanks to the speed, simplicity, shareability and security the platform offers. A March 2015 ESG-Group survey also indicates that 70 percent of IT professionals expect Chromebooks to supplement or replace their existing device footprint in order to cut costs and safely improve employee productivity.

We’ve listened to business customers who have had a need for lightweight devices that don’t compromise on battery life, performance or build quality, and that provide the enhanced security businesses demand. And today with HP, we’re happy to introduce the HP Chromebook 13, the latest professional laptop that’s ultraportable — one of the thinnest and lightest in its class — and offers a new Chromebook docking station to boost productivity and help Chrome work for you.
Designed and built for business At just 0.5 inches thin and starting at 2.86 pounds, the anodized brushed aluminum HP Chromebook 13 is a capable travel partner to and from meetings. It’s also ideal for online meetings, thanks to Audio by B&O Play and a 720p webcam for clear sound and video. Both meetings and work will look great on the 13.3-inch display, available with either full HD or a pixel-packed 3200 x 1800 (QHD+) resolution.

Inside is plenty of power for business grade multi-tasking, with configuration options ranging up to an Intel 6th generation Core m7 processor and 16GB of internal memory. Working through the day won’t be an issue either thanks to a battery that lasts for up to 11.5 hours* between charges. The optional HP Elite USB-C Docking station and port replicator accessories turn the HP Chromebook 13 into a full desktop solution with additional USB 3.0 ports and dual display support.

Easy, seamless integration thanks to new and improved Chrome OS features For our customers who are using a Microsoft infrastructure, we’re excited to announce the improved Citrix Receiver 2.0 for Chrome, a virtualization solution that lets you remotely use apps from other platforms in their own window, even from the Chrome OS launcher. You simply use legacy and Chrome apps the same way, whether they’re local or remote, in browser tabs or individual windows. We also now offer direct integration with the Microsoft PKI based off of Active Directory Certificate Services (ADCS).

You can get more done at your desk with a Chromebook too: support for 3+ monitor and UDL 3.0 DisplayLink support is baked into Chrome 51, currently in the Beta channel. For organizations using smartcards for authentication, such as banks and government institutions, we’ve launched a Certificate Provider API that technology partners are integrating with. And we added the ability to centrally restrict network access for organizations operating in sensitive environments.

Equip your business with Chrome
HP Chromebook 13 starts at $499 in the US, with pre-orders starting today at our reseller partners, and availability from HP and directly through the Chrome for Work site starting in May.

*Battery life may vary depending on specification, usage and other conditions.

Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Senior Product Manager, Chrome for Work


Since we introduced Chromebox for meetings just over two years ago, many of you have enjoyed how our devices make meetings simple and easy. Companies such as Flipkart, PwC, Pinterest and the State of Wyoming are spending less time setting up their conference calls and more time collaborating as groups across regions in rooms of all sizes with Chromebox for meetings.

Today we’re making this easy collaboration available in smaller spaces and also improving remote device management. Say hello to the Acer Chromebase for meetings, an all-in-one secure video-conferencing device optimized for use in small meeting areas with up to two people. It's a secure, self updating, easy to manage unit that builds on Chrome and WebRTC innovations for sharper video, audio and screen sharing. Guest account support makes it simple to join a meeting even without a Google account: Just click a meeting link invitation and you’re connected.

Meet from more places, with more participants So now, you can collaborate and meet over video from a dedicated device at home, your desk at work or a phone room. And since meeting in smaller spaces creates additional opportunity to work together across larger groups, we've also recently expanded the number of meeting participants to 25 people for Google Apps customers.

After testing Chromebase for meetings in its offices, SignalFx sees the benefits.

“Using Chromebase for meetings has been an amazing experience from the start! Right out of the box, it's easy to use and lets us collaborate quickly. The centralized management option allows for full control and oversight, and the price is amazing as well." — Heidi Olson, Executive Assistant / Office Manager, SignalFx

Chromebase for meetings gets technology out of the way; just plug it in, connect it to your network and you’re up and running securely.

Chromebase for meetings is ideally suited for capturing audio and video in personal and shared workspaces:

• Large 24-inch adjustable touchscreen display
• Integrated, adjustable HD camera
• 4 microphones and 2 stereo speakers

Improved management tools for meeting devices
We're also happy to announce new features to our remote fleet management tools. Administrators can receive alert notifications and track health of their fleet of Chrome devices for meetings. They can remotely diagnose and troubleshoot audio, video quality and bandwidth problems. Administrators can also customize the interface using their own background images.

Chromebase for meetings availability
Chromebase for meetings is available at $799 from our partners in the US, Canada, UK, Ireland and Australia. The cost includes the first year’s management and support fees. We'll soon after expand availability to additional countries where Chromebox for meetings is available today.

You can learn more about Chromebase for meetings on our website.

Sign up here to try two Chromebase for meetings devices at no cost for 30 days and receive a special promotion pricing of $549 per device with first year’s management and support fee included.*

*Subject to approval and limited to the first 1,000 signups

Posted by Jon Sully, Director, Famous Fish


Editor's note: Today we hear from Jon Sully, Director of Famous Fish by Steve Costi, founded by one of Australia’s most renowned seafood families and the first business in the world to adopt end-to-end Google Commercial Chrome technology. Learn how the digital technologies helped boost brand awareness and transaction values by nearly 29% while blending seamlessly with a historic seaside aesthetic.


The Costi family joined the seafood business in 1958, and since then has built a strong reputation for offering up the highest quality seafood. One of the reasons for the family’s continued success has been a focus on innovating and responding to what customers really want. With our latest venture, Famous Fish, we aimed to balance our legacy of seafood expertise with a modern, customer-friendly environment. So we decided to cast our net into the digital world and transform our stores with interactive menu boards and express ordering technologies, a decision that has boosted transaction values by nearly 29%.



Our Famous Fish shops are high-traffic environments, so we needed technology that was robust, responsive and durable, as well as user-friendly. We turned to Nuon, a strategic partner of digital signage leader AOPEN. Nuon recommended Google Commercial Chrome due to its reliability and security. 

The Google Commercial Chrome Technology hardware and software platform, developed by both Google and AOPEN, had recently been released. It’s designed for high performance and manageability as well as high-use and quick service retail and restaurant environments like ours. And Nuon believed the solution could be deployed rapidly and cost effectively. It was exactly the solution we were looking for.


Combining self-service touch screens with dynamic menu boards, the Commercial Chrome technology is already providing a huge return on investment. We’re seeing a noticeable increase in brand awareness and a large boost in customer spend.

At our newly opened Fountain Gate franchise, our average transaction value is 28.7% higher when customers have the autonomy and time to consider their purchase, ordering on their own in-store kiosk using the express ordering option. We’re confident that as customers become even more familiar with the self-ordering technology, the response will be even greater.


And the benefits of this new solution go beyond awareness and sales. Since we’re expanding rapidly, being able to centrally manage the Commercial Chrome Devices is key to our growth. Google’s Chrome Device Management has made central management easy and effective.

We also love that Google/AOPEN Commercial Chromebase products blend in a stylish and attractive way with our seaside design aesthetic. We wouldn’t have bet before actually seeing it that this digital technology would sit so comfortably alongside our weathered white timber panelling, beach murals and miscellaneous fishing paraphernalia. The digital technologies that have modernized our restaurant leave the personality and history of our brand completely in tact.

Famous Fish, Fountain Gate, in Melbourne is the first store to use the Google/AOPEN Commercial Chrome platform. Since that deployment has been such a success, we’ll deploy the technology in other stores very soon following the Fountain Gate blueprint.

Posted by Saswat Panigrahi, Product Manager, Chrome for Work

These days, the browser has become the go-to application in business. It enables employees to use a wide array of productivity, collaboration and business workflow applications. Chances are today, the browser is among the most critical applications users start up with their morning coffee.


Chrome has become one of the most-used business browsers; research firm Gartner expects Chrome’s enterprise usage to surge from 43% to 65% share in 2016. Customers have switched to Chrome because of its speed, simplicity and security. IT admins have become big champions of Chrome because our browser automatically updates and delivers enterprise applications seamlessly and consistently across all operating systems (Windows, Mac, Linux — and of course Chrome OS). This means cost and time savings as IT can manage one secure endpoint to deliver all their users’ apps.


Today, we’re announcing new investments for Chrome, specifically for businesses: security enhancements for Windows 10, improvements to the Chrome update system for enterprises and a new 24x7 support offering for all customers, including those who aren’t using Google Apps but are running Chrome as their primary browser.

Security - Security is one of the founding principles of Chrome. Now, we’ve made the sandbox more secure by incorporating the broadest set of available protections. We’ve also introduced a new Security Panel in DevTools to make it easier for developers to troubleshoot issues with certificates and mixed content — meaning pages rendered with both HTTPS and HTTP elements — making it easier to develop and deploy secure Web applications. Finally, we've also made great progress in the fight against unwanted software, for instance, by warning users of a site’s potential risks.

Caching - Companies rely on our automatic updates every six weeks to make the Chrome browser safer and faster over time. But for an organization with thousands of users and devices, trying to pull the latest Chrome update can strain the organization’s infrastructure. The new DownloadPreference lets proxies already used by businesses cache updates automatically,  so virtually all downloads come from the company proxy and not the Internet, saving time and bandwidth.

24x7 Support - We recognize that for businesses that run on Chrome, it’s important to have the peace of mind that comes with 24x7 support from Google. We’ve been providing this for Google Apps customers, and today we’re expanding this to all customers — even those who aren’t using Google Apps. This new offering is called Chrome for Work Assist, and includes 24x7 phone and email support, with deployment assistance from Google. Chrome for Work Assist is now available in the US and Canada, with more regions launching soon. Contact us to learn more or get started.

Posted by Jon Byrum, Product Marketing Manager, Google Cloud Platform

(Cross-posted on the Google Cloud Platform Blog.)

Athletic gear, much like all apparel categories, is quickly shifting to an online sales business. Sports Authority, seeing the benefits that cloud could offer around agility and speed, turned to Google Cloud Platform to help it respond to its customers faster.

In 2014, Sports Authority’s technical team was asked to build a solution that would expose all in-store product inventory to its ecommerce site, sportsauthority.com, allowing customers to see local store availability of products as they were shopping online. That’s nearly half a million products to choose from in over 460 stores across the U.S. and Puerto Rico.

This use case posed a major challenge for the company. Its in-store inventory data was “locked” deep inside a mainframe. Exposing millions of products to thousands of customers, 24 hours a day, seven days a week would not be possible using this system.

The requirements for a new solution included finding the customer’s location, searching the 90 million record inventory system and returning product availability in just the handful of stores nearest in location to that particular customer. On top of that, the API would need to serve at least 50 customers per second, while returning results in less than 200 milliseconds.

Choosing the right cloud provider

At the time this project began, Sports Authority had already been a Google Apps for Work (Gmail, Google Sites, Docs) customer since 2011. However, it had never built any custom applications on Google Cloud Platform.

After a period of due diligence checking out competing cloud provider options, Sports Authority decided that Google App Engine and Google Cloud Datastore had the right combination of attributes — elastic scaling, resiliency and simplicity of deployment — to support this new solution.

Through the combined efforts of a dedicated project team, business partners and three or four talented developers, it was able to build a comprehensive solution on Cloud Platform in about five months. It consisted of multiple modules: 1) batch processes, using Informatica to push millions of product changes from its IBM mainframe to Google Cloud Storage each night, 2) load processes — python code running on App Engine, which spawn task queue jobs to load Cloud Datastore, and 3) a series of SOAP and REST APIs to expose the search functionality to its ecommerce website.

Sports Authority used tools including SOAPUI and LOADUI to simulate thousands of virtual users to measure the scalability of SOAP and REST APIs. It found that as the number of transactions grew past 2,000 per second, App Engine and Cloud Datastore continued to scale seamlessly, easily meeting its target response times.

The company implemented the inventory locator solution just in time for the 2014 holiday season. It performed admirably during that peak selling period and continues to do so today.

This screenshot shows what customers see when they shop for products on the website — a list of local stores, showing the availability of any given product in each store

When a customer finds a product she's interested in buying, the website requests inventory availability from Sports Authority’s cloud API, which provides a list of stores and product availability to the customer, as exhibited in the running shoe example above.

In-store kiosk

As Sports Authority became comfortable building solutions on Cloud Platform, it opened its eyes to other possibilities for creating new solutions to better serve its customers.

For example, it recently developed an in-store kiosk, which allows customers to search for products that may not be available in that particular store. It also lets them enroll in the loyalty program and purchase gift cards. This kiosk is implemented on a Google Chromebox, connected to a web application running on App Engine.

This image shows the in-store kiosk that customers use to locate products available in other stores.

Internal store portal

Additionally, it built a store portal and task management system, which facilitates communication between the corporate office and its stores. This helps the store team members plan and execute their work more efficiently, allowing them to serve customers better when needs arise. This solution utilizes App Engine, Cloud Datastore and Google Custom Search, and was built with the help of a local Google partner, Tempus Nova.

This screenshot shows the internal store portal that employees use to monitor daily tasks.

Learning how to build software in any new environment such as Cloud Platform takes time, dedication and a willingness to learn. Once up to speed, the productivity and power of Google Cloud Platform allowed the Sports Authority team to work like a software company and build quickly while wielding great power.

Posted by Craig Bell, IT Service Delivery Director at The Cordant Group

Editor's note: Today we hear from Craig Bell, IT Service Delivery Director at The Cordant Group, a specialist recruitment and integrated services company employing up to 50,000 staff during peak times, and turning over £750 million a year. Here, Craig tells us how Google Apps for Work has not only helped them work smarter and more flexibly thanks to a business-wide rollout, but has also helped deliver a projected savings of £500,000 to the company’s bottom line in just a year. *Post updated on March 7, 2016.

It may have grown since it was founded in 1957, but ours is still a family business, and one that values the input of every individual, whether they’re one of our 2,500 permanent employees, or one of our tens of thousands of seasonal workers. But with so many staff, we realised we needed an IT solution that would answer the needs of each person, rather than asking each of them to answer to our inflexible IT system. Our solution is Google Apps for Work, which has transformed the way we operate our business at every level.

With 200 locations nationwide, as well as offices in Germany and Australia, we launched our rollout of Google Apps for Work so our staff can work as a team, wherever they are. In early 2015, Cloud Technology Solutions (CTS) helped us deploy Drive for Work and Chrome. Over the course of one year, CTS delivered several thousand Chrome devices, from Chromebooks and Chromebases to Chromebox for meetings.

Now Gmail gives access to our accounts whether in the office, at home or on the road — and the fact that it’s multi-device compatible means no more lugging laptops around just to check our inboxes. The flexibility and immediacy it provides ensures that important messages don’t fall through the cracks, and now we’re so speedy and effective with email communications that we send and receive up to 16 million emails each month.

Hangouts also allows us to communicate (face-to-face in this case) at any time, no matter where any of us are based. With over a thousand Hangouts happening across the Group every month, Hangouts have become so crucial to the way we run our business and communicate with each other that we now often use it to conduct interviews for IT recruits. It’s a great way to asses how intuitively candidates use technology tools, in particular Google Apps. Using Hangouts for interviews also benefits our bottom line: we now spend an average of 25% less time on interviews for IT team members, simply because we don’t have to spend time on things like collecting interviewees from reception and making them cups of tea.

As a recruitment company, we have a frequent turnover of staff. Having forward-looking and familiar tools helps us appeal to the very best new recruits. Web-based mail, instant messaging and online communities like Google+, are cloud-based tools that younger generations have grown up with — and are now ready to work with. This familiarity allows new starters to work efficiently from the moment they log on and saves us time and money on training. Plus Google Apps tools are also incredibly easy to scale up or down.

Knowledge is also easy for us to scale now. We share documents hosted on Google Drive almost half a million times every month and add 125,000 new files each month. And everything we do is reusable rather than disposable. Our own internal teams can manage and roll out successful solutions to every one of our 200 locations without needing armies of external IT service providers to support us, a change that along with keeping specialist knowledge in-house and doing things more efficiently has played a significant part in reducing our operational expenditure by hundreds of thousands of pounds each year.

With the virtual nature of Google for Work products, we can also keep costs and downtime at a minimum when relocating to new offices as we grow. Google’s ability to integrate data and systems to the cloud so seamlessly means shifting office spaces and acquiring new companies is now more economically viable. When considering the total cost of acquisition for a subsidiary business, we look at how easily a business can be “Googlised.” Using Chrome OS allows us to almost instantly integrate existing businesses with often outdated legacy apps into our Group. This has opened up a host of opportunities that we otherwise would not have taken because of prohibitive IT costs.

In just one year, Google Apps for Work has completely changed the way we operate, which says a lot coming from a large and established business. As part of our company-wide “New World” IT rollout, we estimate that the new tools will enable us to save about £500,000, thanks to a combination of lower licensing costs, reducing capital expenditure by purchasing 2,000 compatible devices at more than half the previous cost of replacement, minimising use of external suppliers and relying more heavily on in-house skills and efficiencies. And there’s no doubt that we’ve also saved and earned a whole lot more thanks to working smarter with IT-led solutions.

Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Senior Product Manager, Chrome & Android, Google for Work & Education 

Editor's note: To learn more about managing intelligent Chrome devices, join our Chrome product team for a Hangout on Air on Thursday, November 19th at 10AM PST.

More and more businesses across the globe are using DIY-service models and integrated mobile, digital signage and kiosk technology to personalize their customer experience.

While the customer experience is enhanced, the administration experience needs to stay simple. That’s why we developed the web-based Chrome Device Management Console, which allows business owners to remotely manage their fleet of devices across all their storefronts. "We tried many different solutions, using Google for signage was the easiest to push, control and manage throughout the enterprise,” said Alan Mariotti, Vice President of Technology and Security at Chico’s. In fact, IDC found that Chrome customers they spoke to averaged a three-year ROI of 319% for Chrome devices when used in kiosk mode, with an investment break-even time of approximately 4.8 months.

Today we’re introducing a more streamlined console just for digital signs and kiosks called Single App Chrome Device Management (Single App CDM), priced at $24 per device per year. Single App CDM offers ongoing reporting that monitors the health of your kiosks and signage at all times. You’ll get alerts if a device goes down and can remotely reboot the device without dispatching a technician. You can also get live updates about system usage and capture screen grabs to see exactly what viewers see.

Single App CDM can be used with a variety of Chrome devices – like the ASUS Chromebit, which is available for purchase today – to share relevant content quickly and simply, with the flexibility and security to seamlessly integrate into a broad spectrum of signage configurations. For example, the menu boards at a coffee shop or cafe could be powered by Chrome devices like the Chromebox, Chromebase and Chromebit, running a Chrome Kiosk app that displays relevant, dynamic content. Combined with our rich partner ecosystem of Chrome Kiosk apps from StratosMedia, Telemetry, Arreya, SignageLive, Wondersign, Nutrislice, Chrome Sign builder and many others, we have a solution to support any scenario.

To learn more about how other organizations are using Chrome OS to deliver signage, check out this new IDC white paper.

Posted by Hiroshi Lockheimer, SVP Android, Chrome OS and Chromecast

(Cross-posted on the Google Chrome Blog.)

Over the last few days, there’s been some confusion about the future of Chrome OS and Chromebooks based on speculation that Chrome OS will be folded into Android. While we’ve been working on ways to bring together the best of both operating systems, there's no plan to phase out Chrome OS.

With the launch of Chrome OS six years ago, we set out to make computers better—faster, simpler and more secure—for everyone. We’ve since seen that vision come to life in classrooms, offices and homes around the world. In fact, every school day, 30,000 new Chromebooks are activated in U.S. classrooms—that’s more than all other education devices combined. And more than 2 million teachers and students in more than 150 countries have the Share to Classroom Chrome extension, which launched in September and gets students onto the same webpage, instantly. Meanwhile, companies such as Netflix, Sanmina, Starbucks and of course Google, are using Chromebooks given the ease of deployment, the ability to easily integrate with existing technologies, and a security model that protects users at all levels, from hardware to user data. (Chromebooks are so secure you don’t need antivirus software!) IT administrators can manage tens of thousands of Chromebooks through a single web console, making them ideal for both classrooms and the workplace.

For everyday use, we’re proud that Chromebooks are continually listed as a best-selling laptop computer on Amazon.com. In an effort to make computing even more accessible, earlier this year we introduced the first $149 Chromebook—a fast, affordable laptop. And in the next couple weeks the Asus Chromebit will be available—an $85 device that turns any display into a computer so you can replace your old desktop with an affordable computer the size of a candy bar, or let businesses transform a billboard into a smart digital sign.

This year we've also worked to redefine the different forms Chrome OS can take, introduced the first designated Chromebook for Work, and brought more of your favorite Android apps to your Chromebook via Apps Runtime on Chrome (a.k.a. ARC). But there’s more to do. We have plans to release even more features for Chrome OS, such as a new media player, a visual refresh based on Material Design, improved performance, and of course, a continued focus on security. With our regular six-week software cycle and guaranteed auto-updates for five years, Chromebooks keep getting better over time. Finally, stay on the lookout for dozens of new Chromebooks in 2016.

Posted by Douglas Grgas, General Manager of IT/Infrastructure, Converga

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Douglas Grgas at Converga, a business process outsourcing company based in Australia, providing digital mailroom, document processing and a variety of other managed services. Converga introduced Chromebooks to ensure better availability of internal services for remote employees, as well as a new platform for office staff.

When employees are based in many different locations, whether it’s at corporate offices or customer sites, it’s important to make all employees feel connected to headquarters. As a company with over 1,300 resources at more than 150 customer locations, we’ve addressed this challenge firsthand by providing employees with technology to stay in touch. Many of our employees spend the majority of their time at our customers’ offices providing managed services, such as operating mailrooms or converting paper documents to digital versions.

To bridge the gap between off-site and on-site communications, account managers visited customer sites regularly to communicate with remote employees, and our CEO carried out a roadshow, where he talked about company performance, new customer wins and progress on global objectives, but off-site employees still felt disconnected from central operations on a day-to-day basis.

Our biggest ongoing challenge with keeping employees connected while at customer sites was having to rely on customers’ devices and networks. Often employees couldn’t access email and the Internet, which resulted in being disconnected from corporate communications and reduced productivity. We wanted everyone to feel connected and productive wherever they were, and to have access to technology that simplified their activities.

We chose Chrome for Converga because of its simplicity of use and seamless remote management. We liked that Chromebooks are sleek and lightweight like a tablet, but have a keyboard for easy data entry.

Beyond the device, the central Chrome Device Management service allows easy deployment and controls, device security, network connectivity and integrated apps across Converga’s fleet of Chromebooks, all with the additional benefit of leveraging Google’s Support services.

Also, since Chromebooks integrate with Citrix XenApp, which virtually delivers existing apps through the Chrome Browser, we don’t have to repurchase or rewrite existing applications.

Converga has deployed Chromebooks at 50 customer sites across Australia and New Zealand during the past year. We’ve also deployed numerous devices, many utilizing the Citrix XenApp, at our corporate offices.

Now more than 500 employees have a two-way channel to communicate with headquarters, using a reliable and standard operating environment, which IT can manage remotely. Employees can quickly search for information using Chrome, record notes in Google Docs and communicate with employees at other sites via Hangouts and Google+, all accessible via a simple to use, remotely managed, lightweight device.

Chromebooks are the foundation that helps our employees connect with each other and senior management. We use our company Google Site, which acts as our intranet, to do everything from feature employees of the month to communicate company perks and share performance metrics. Employees also use the intranet to share updates about customer sites, so the rest of the business can stay connected. For example, around Christmas, our employees post pictures of how their customers have decorated for the holidays. Each time an employee does something related to the Converga tree, a tree that represents our company values, he or she is asked to share the activity with the rest of the community.

Introducing Chromebooks has supported our goal of making all employees, regardless of their location, feel united. As we continue to introduce new technologies, our employees are more engaged in their work and empowered to share their stories with one another.

Posted by Ashley Sprague, Director of IT, Netflix

Editor's note: Today’s guest blogger is Ashley Sprague, Director of IT at Netflix, where over 65 million members go to stream their favorite movies, shows and more. Netflix was recently featured at Chrome Live to share how they’ve brought their call center into the cloud powered solely by Chrome devices and Chrome management. To learn more about Netflix’s approach to work, check out this recording of Chrome Live.

If you’re binge-watching the newest season of “Orange Is the New Black” on Netflix and the streaming video falters just as the ladies of Litchfield launch into a new scheme, we want to troubleshoot for you. If you have questions about your monthly plan, we’d like to answer those too. Whatever your question or challenge, the Netflix Salt Lake City call center reps can provide fast answers. Now that Chromeboxes, Chromebooks and Chrome management are the backbone of our call center, we can focus on helping customers instead of managing software and hardware from multiple vendors. By bringing our contact center to the cloud with the help of Chrome, adding reps and managing hardware and software is easier than ever — and we’ve broken free of the traditional call center model.

Netflix’s call center is growing steadily, and we’re expecting to increase the number of reps. Legacy hardware didn’t give us much flexibility to add new reps or bring in new equipment when we had breakdowns. Swapping in new workstations demanded that we reconfigured the devices, so we had to keep an extra row of workstations just for reps to use when their desktops didn’t work. We maintained more hardware on the call center floor than we needed — taking up space, costing money, and requiring more time and IT resources to manage. The call center is hundreds of miles away from our IT home base, so a cloud-based management solution made sense.

We’re already using Google Apps for Work at Netflix, so it made sense to think about how Google could help reduce the call center’s dependence on outdated technology while allowing us to grow as needed. At the heart of our new call center is Chrome management, which gives us a one-stop shop for maintaining Chrome devices used by reps and call center managers.

Our reps are using Chromeboxes at their workstations, while supervisors use Chromebooks to manage Chrome and the call center. We can add reps in Chrome management in just a few seconds, and they instantly have access to their email, calendars, and Hangouts — everything they need to start working. We can apply policies to groups of reps with just a few clicks, which is a big time-saver.

Switching out a device requires nothing more than handing a rep a new Chrome device and telling them to plug it in. You hear a lot of overly optimistic claims about “plug and play” in the technology world, but with Chrome devices, it’s all true. One of our call center managers says it takes longer to get a Chromebook out of the box than it does to set it up — and I believe it.

Our call center reps love having every application right at their fingertips as soon as they sign in to Chrome. We can tell they’re happy because the number of trouble tickets has dropped noticeably, another way we’re saving time on the IT side. When reps can get straight to work without worrying about the technology they’re using, they can spend more time on giving customers great service — so when people call with questions about streaming the new season of “Orange Is the New Black,” we’re ready.

Posted by Rajen Sheth, Director of Product Management, Chrome for Work

Today at Chrome Live, we showed how Chrome continues to make the way we work faster, simpler and more secure, while businesses like Netflix, Pinterest and Chico’s shared how Chrome for Work is bringing innovation to their workplaces.


We also announced new Chrome products and features that make it simpler to bring Chrome to work, including:

• Chromebook integration with Box for more ways to bring your files to the cloud: Now, you can seamlessly access your Box documents from a Chromebook, just as you would access your local documents. This means that with your Chromebook, you’ll have access to even more applications, no matter where you are.

• Bringing face-to-face meetings to larger rooms: Last year, we launched Chromebox for meetings so you can have face-to-face conversations with colleagues in remote offices and still feel like you’re in the same room. Today, we announced a new version of Chromebox for meetings that powers meeting rooms fitting up to twenty people. The hardware in the bundle includes a Chromebox powered by Dell, Asus, and HP, a pan tilt zoom camera, and more; just bring your own display. From huddle rooms to large conference rooms, you can now affordably bring video meetings to more office spaces.

• Improvements to Chrome management for Chrome-dedicated devices: A few weeks ago, we announced over a dozen Chrome partners in the digital signage space. We’ve also improved ongoing reporting to monitor the health of your kiosks and signage at all times. You’ll get alerts from Chrome management if a screen goes down and can remotely reboot the device to get it back online without dispatching a technician. You can also get live updates about system usage and capture screen grabs to see exactly what viewers see.

• Bringing Chrome management pricing flexibility to more places: We’re adding pricing flexibility to Chromebook management at a subscription fee of $50/year and announcing availability in seven new countries: Japan, Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, India, UK and France.

If you weren’t able to attend the live session, you can still watch the event on demand. Feel free to share your thoughts, impressions and questions using #chromelive15 on social media.

Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Product Manager, Chrome for Work

(Cross-posted on the Google for Education Blog.)

Editor's note: Chromeboxes help businesses and schools update employees and students with timely information and create a sense of community. To learn more about using Chromebox for digital signage and how it can help your business or school work smarter, join Chrome Live on April 22.

Schools and universities across the country use digital signage to share announcements, news and schedules. Chromeboxes give students waiting in dorm lobbies for friends or standing in the cafeteria line for lunch the opportunity to learn about campus events on the go. And digital signage apps for Chrome built by Rise Vision, one of our content partners, power many of these digital experiences that go beyond traditional campus fliers.

Here are three ways academic institutions are using Chromeboxes for digital signage to better engage and inform students:

Personalizing content at Siena College Siena College, a private liberal arts college in Loudonville, New York, prizes its close-knit community of 3,000 students. In this intimate class setting, individual departments manage their own content featured on Chromeboxes for display. IT and display managers don’t have to be involved in day-to-day content updates, and each department is nimble and flexible with their content. For example, the Student Senate features content from the athletics and academic departments on several of its screens and those departments directly update their content to ensure it’s relevant and timely.

Cutting IT costs and time at University of Toronto Mississauga The University of Toronto Mississauga uses its 25 digital signage displays to profile professors, highlight research projects and market events to their more than 12,600 undergraduate students. Their previous display technology required extensive IT time to configure and update. Since Chromeboxes automatically update with new features and security fixes, IT can spend time on other tasks. Chromeboxes have also freed up the University’s budget, since they’re much more affordable than their previous display equipment, which cost $1,300.

Reducing power use at Manor Independent School District The 20 digital signage displays in the Manor Independent School District notify the 8,000 K-12 students about announcements, lunchroom menus, upcoming events and recent posts from a live Twitter feed. Previously, the schools relied on netbooks to power their screens, which consumed a lot of power, were noisy and crashed often. Chromeboxes, which don’t have fans or spinning hard drives, were a natural fit as the district sought more eco-friendly display solutions.

As universities and school districts continue improving their digital display technology, they’re finding better ways to deliver informative and entertaining content to teachers and current and prospective students. Join Chrome Live to learn how to use Chromebox for digital signage at your school.

Posted by Casey Le, Product Marketing Manager, Chrome for Work

Chrome was a big bet when it was introduced six years ago and has since grown to provide a simpler, speedier and safer web for more than 750 million users around the world. Today, Chrome is an integrated hardware and software solution for work that meets the challenges of and innovates upon traditional platforms.


Join us online April 22nd at 10:00am PDT at Chrome Live, our first-ever online event, to hear from Googlers, technical experts and our customers about how Chrome is meeting the needs of a more mobile, social and cloud-oriented workplace. At Chrome Live, you’ll:

• Have a front-row seat to two keynotes from:

• Amit Singh, President of Google for Work, who’ll share how Chrome for Work is part of the transformational agenda of many businesses today. He’ll also be announcing a number of new products coming to the Chrome for Work family.

• Rajen Sheth, Director of Product Management for Chrome for Work, who’ll discuss how devices have revolutionized the way we work. He’ll also uncover a few pathways of our top-secret roadmap and may have a few surprises in store.

• Learn how the web, meeting technology and digital displays are being reimagined with Chrome for Work product managers Saswat Panigrahi and Vidya Nagarajan

• See live deployment and management demos by Chrome team experts

• Hear from IT leaders at Netflix, Pinterest and Chico’s about integrating devices with the cloud and enabling IT admins at top companies to streamline day-to-day operations

• Get a sneak peek at the team’s plans to continue innovating and addressing new needs in the market

To be a part of Chrome Live, all you need is a comfortable seat, an Internet connection and a computer, tablet or phone; pants are optional but recommended. You’ll be able to interact with Google experts and ask questions.

Register now to learn all this and more at the first Chrome Live event on Wednesday, April 22nd at 10:00am PDT. And even if you can’t attend on the scheduled dates, be sure to register to stay up to date on all things Chrome. Feel free to share your thoughts, impressions and questions using #chromelive15 on social media.

Posted by Andrew Jessett, IT manager at Xero

Editor's note: It’s been just over a year since we launched Chromebox for meetings, and to celebrate the milestone we’re sharing stories about our customers and their approaches to business, culture and productivity that are bringing them success. In today’s post, online accounting software provider Xero tells how it manages to keep its startup-like efficiency, innovation and feel while expanding globally. To learn more about Chromebox for meetings, join us online at Chrome Live on April 22 and see how companies scale face-to-face meetings across the globe.


Xero was started by several developers nine years ago in an apartment above a coffee shop in Wellington, New Zealand. Today, we have more than 1,000 employees in 15 cities across the U.S., U.K., Australia and New Zealand and provide online accounting software to more than 400,000 global customers. With more than 200 percent five-year average sales growth as of June 2014, our biggest challenge now is managing the fast-paced growth while maintaining our nimble, tech-forward startup culture.

We like to keep work in small groups and move quickly. Our teams work closely on projects even when they’re located in different offices around the world. And since we like to stay on the cutting edge of technology, we’re using Google Apps, which allows us to stay coordinated and productive.

Our pain point in IT was finding a way for teams in different cities and offices to meet and collaborate at the same time. We used a variety of video conferencing technologies, including PCs, HDMI/VGA and projectors. They were difficult to set up, meetings were delayed and productivity suffered. As we continued to grow, this struggle intensified, and we realized that we needed to find a solution fast. We needed to streamline our meeting room setups and get the most out of Hangouts. When we heard about Chromebox for meetings, we jumped at the chance to try it out.

We started with six Chromebox for meetings units. Today, we have nearly a hundred. They’re in every meeting room. We use them for room-to-room conferencing and all hands meetings. The global team uses them to connect every two weeks and the CEO addresses the entire company via Hangout on Air.

Chromebox for meetings allow us to keep things simple. There’s very little infrastructure or wireless connections needed on our side, so no cables necessary. Setup is fast and the integration with Gmail makes joining Hangouts as easy as clicking a button. It’s easy to share documents and work on them together. Then there’s the cost savings. Instead of spending between $40,000 and $60,000 on a video conferencing system, we spent one-tenth of that on a Chromebox and a display.

We may be a larger company now, but we still want to move and act quickly. No matter how large we become, our values align with those of fresh innovative companies that respond rapidly to market demand, customer needs and competition. Thanks to Chromebox for meetings, we can keep the startup feel and agility while growing at breakneck speed.

Posted by Vidya Nagarajan, Product Manager, Chrome for Work

Editor's note: Chrome offers secure, customizable and easily manageable devices and apps for today’s business. Join us for Chrome Live, April 22-24, to learn how web-based solutions can help maximize your company’s productivity. Register here.

Since last year’s Digital Signage Expo and the introduction of Chrome’s single app kiosk mode, many customers and developers have built digital signage applications on Chromeboxes. Chromeboxes are secure, easy to manage and cost effective, making them ideal to display content and engage customers in any location. Chicos chose Chrome to manage and display content on over 5000 screens across more than 1500 stores.

We’ve done more with the Chrome platform to make signage even easier, adding new features that make it seamless to plan signage content and manage device health. Today, we’re announcing these capabilities:

• The Chrome Sign Builder helps you create intelligent digital signs that are easy to build, schedule and deploy. You can add and manage content for any number of screens, and schedule that content to run when needed, across many screens at different times of day. A great example of this in action: displaying breakfast, lunch and dinner menus at various restaurant locations across multiple time zones.

• The Chrome App Builder makes it easy to build third-party kiosk apps. You can set up applications to eliminate the “first-run” configuration process and rapidly deploy across multiple screens. We have several third party partners who've built solutions for signage including Stratos, Rise, Arreya, Wondersign, Four Winds Interactive, Scala, and Industry Weapon; and we're adding more to this ecosystem.

• Ongoing reporting monitors the health of your kiosks and signage at all times. You’ll get alerts from Chrome device management if a screen goes down, and can remotely reboot the device to get it back online without dispatching a technician. You can also get live updates about system usage and capture screen grabs to see exactly what viewers see.

In addition, today AOPEN announced three new commercial Chrome OS devices that will add more durability to digital signage. By working with AOPEN, we can offer more rugged hardware equipped to handle harsh conditions — like a hot and greasy back-of-house line at a restaurant.
If you’d like to learn more about these new devices and management features, visit us at the Digital Signage Expo in booth 2218 to see them in action or online. You can also register now for Chrome Live, a digital conference we’re hosting April 22-24.

Posted by Henrik Poulsen, Deputy CIO, Arbejdernes Landsbank

Editor's note: Today’s post comes from Henrik Poulsen at Arbejdernes Landsbank, a full service retail bank in Denmark. Arbejdernes Landsbank recently introduced Chromebooks to help customers become more digitally savvy.

Many people open their mailboxes to find dozens of envelopes from financial institutions with information they can easily find online. As a retail bank, most of our customers are used to receiving bank statements and loan documents via snail mail, but that’s about to change. At the end of 2014, the Danish Government mandated that all citizens receive mail from the public sector online. At Arbejdernes Landsbank, we’re helping our customers adapt to a new era of digital banking in 2015.
Before we started prioritizing this digital service, customers struggled to access their online information when they visited a branch location. They had to bring their own devices since using the bank’s devices could expose customer data to security issues. Customers brought different devices with varying network settings, so often our employees spent time dealing with technical computer issues, rather than helping the customer. This was not just time-consuming, but resulted in poor customer service and security issues. Keeping data secure in the financial industry isn’t an option; it’s a requirement.

We introduced Chromebooks in January 2015 because they’re secure and easy to use. In each of our 70 branches, we have a Chromebook set up as a kiosk for customers to log onto our website and access income and loan documents, digitally sign customer agreements and refer to electronic statements. We can create a setting so the data one customer accesses is completely wiped before the next customer uses the device. Customers feel comfortable disclosing sensitive information using the Chromebooks because they know their information is safe. Setup for each device requires about two minutes of our IT team’s time, and the device can be managed remotely.

Chromebooks help our customers become more digitally savvy while streamlining time-intensive processes, like completing and mailing in paperwork. When a customer needs to access their income information for a loan, they can pull it up online while at the branch, rather than going home and mailing it. Instead of waiting for the next teller, customers help themselves using the Chromebook. Employees spend their time helping customers who need immediate attention, which allows us to deliver higher quality service.

Introducing Chromebooks has helped us keep sensitive information secure while providing peace of mind for our customers and familiarizing them with digital banking — all without placing a burden on our IT resources. As we pioneer new digital technologies, we look forward to serving as an educational resource for our customers and making it easier for them to manage their finances anytime and anywhere.

Posted by Eric Singleton, CIO, and Alan Mariotti, VP of Technology and Security, Chico's

Editor's note: Today’s post comes from Eric Singleton, CIO, and Alan Mariotti, Vice President of Technology and Security, of Chico’s, a specialty retailer of branded clothing and accessories through its brands: Chico's, White House Black Market, Soma Intimates, and Boston Proper. Chico’s has 1,500 stores as well as catalogues and e-commerce websites for each of its brands.

Imagine running into your favorite clothing store in Chicago during a snowstorm and seeing a colorful digital display of cozy sweaters. Or you’re shopping in San Francisco for an outfit for a company party and the store’s display screens show cocktail dresses on sale. At Chico’s FAS stores, we will be using Chromeboxes to personalize the shopping experience by tailoring our digital signage to the city, the store, and even the specific department.

We’ve had our Chico’s Digital Retail Theater strategy in the works for some time, with plans to bring personalized content up to 5,000 screens at about 1,500 stores. I wanted to control displays down to each individual screen and swap new content as needed, without burdening our IT department or maintaining complex hardware at each store. After reviewing and sketching out a range of approaches for solving this challenging problem, we settled on Chromebox. Alan Mariotti, our VP of Technology and Security, praised the technology for its simplicity, low cost, and scalable performance. The easier a digital signage system is to install and use, the faster we can push out unique and relevant content to screens – an imperative in retail, where merchandise and promotions always change.

Chromeboxes as a signage solution met all of our tests for affordability and ease of management. Since they’re cost-effective, we can afford to outfit more of our stores with more displays. Since they’re small, they don’t take up valuable space in stores and they are unobtrusive. With more screens, we have more places where we can tailor content that resonates with each store’s customers.

We launched our first 10 Chrome-powered screens at our redesigned White House | Black Market store in Santa Monica, California, with content management software from Rise Vision deployed by Uniguest, both of whom are Google partners. We’re testing the sales impact of changing merchandise content on the fly, compared to traditional retail channels like catalogues and print advertising. We’ll also see if shoppers respond to and interact with catalogue content that appears on store screens.
We’re also looking to Chrome to bring promotions to customers in minutes — a huge leap ahead from the printing process. The lead time for printed posters can be as long as 10 days due to the lengthy cycle of designing, printing, and delivering to stores. Not only is physical printing at this pace incredibly expensive, but we can’t react as quickly with print as we can with instant digital if new products and sales hit the stores on short notice. Chromebox for signage will eventually almost eliminate these printing and distribution costs, while shortening the time needed to bring relevant shopping news to our customers.

The impact of our Digital Retail Theater strategy with Chrome goes far beyond screens with pretty pictures. When customers come to one of our stores, we want to immerse customers in the Chico’s FAS shopping experience – sharing with them the perfect jacket for her first day at a new job, the winter coat that transforms her look, or the dream dress that makes her evening magical.