Google wins contract with luxury British automaker

By Martin Veitch

November 16, 2009 06:00 AM ET

Comments

(0)

Top Stories

CIO - Google Inc. recently signed up another big customer for its Google Apps Premier collaboration and productivity suite: Jaguar Land Rover. The vehicle maker obtained a license for 15,000 employees worldwide, adding another name brand to Google's roster of big commercial customers, such as business services firm Rentokil Initial PLC and vehicle parts maker Valeo.

Jaguar Land Rover is in the process of separating its systems from those of former parent Ford Motor Co., which sold the luxury brands to Tata Motors Ltd. last year for $2.3 billion.

Jeremy Vincent, CIO at Jaguar Land Rover, said he's a recent convert to Web-based applications. "Six or seven months ago, I didn't know what cloud computing was, but I was invited to speak at a conference on it, so I thought I had better learn. I did, and it fundamentally changed my attitude towards IT," he said.

The low cost of Google Apps "enabled me to get the approval process signed off quickly," Vincent said, "but in the future, it will give us access to a commodity solution across the workforce."

He said he was recruited to Jaguar Land Rover "on a change agenda," and going with Google Apps fit the bill. "If you do the same as everyone else, don't expect to be better than anybody else," he added.

—Martin Veitch, CIO U.K.

Comment Recommend Digg Twitter ShareThis

Email Print Send Feedback Reprints

Reprinted with permission from

This story is reprinted from CIO.com, an online resource for information executives.
Story Copyright CXO Media Inc., 2009. All rights reserved.

Jump to comments

Google Apps Premier

Additional Resources

WHITE PAPER

EFD vs. HDD - What You Need to Know

Enterprise flash drives provide a new Tier 0 storage layer capable of delivering high I/O performance at a very low latency. Proper use of EFDs in an Oracle environment can deliver increased performance compared to fibre channel drives. Read the recommendations for identification of the best DB components for EFDs.

WHITE PAPER

Gartner Research Report: Magic Quadrant for Application Delivery Controllers, 2009

The market for products to improve the delivery of application software over networks remains dynamic and innovative. Vendors focused on solving enterprises' most-pressing application problems have become the top players.

WHITE PAPER

Eight Criteria for Server Load Balancing

Server load balancers are a simple yet highly effective means to scale an application environment while ensuring its availability. Today's solutions should also address application performance and security. Read about the top eight criteria you should consider when choosing a server load balancer and how Citrix NetScaler meets those requirements.

Strategic Content Management
Learn how the right Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solution can start saving you money within a week and pay for itself in as little as three months. These case studies and white papers provide practical information on how to go from theory to reality - to help you put together a plan that will achieve your content management and process automation goals.
Enter the Strategic Content Management Zone now