The growth of work mobility and the need to store and access data from many devices and locations is driving the development of a new concept called "cloud computing," which facilitates anywhere/anytime collaboration between colleagues. Cloud computing allows multiple users to access applications and data that reside on the Internet rather than on personal computers, according to Alex Diacre, lead solutions engineer for Google Apps. Mr. Diacre delivered the luncheon keynote address at the October Telework Exchange Town Hall Meeting.

Cloud computing overcomes many of the current difficulties workers experience when trying to collaborate on the same document or file, which often requires sending different copies to various colleagues involved, not getting changes back on a timely basis, having to manually merge changes, and not being able to retrieve the document from an employee who has left the organization or has been taken off a project. "These are collaboration challenges that we face everyday, even if we are sitting next to each other," Diacre stated.

Traditional PC-based collaboration also introduces security risks, he explained, noting that he recently had obtained statistics from the chief security officer within Google that "were really astounding." According to one survey, 66 percent of thumb drive owners reported losing a thumb drive containing private or confidential data; 1 in 10 new laptops purchased this year will be stolen within the first 12 months; and 60 percent of an organization's intellectual property resides on hard drives, most of which are unencrypted and unprotected.

"When you move to an online environment, these traditional risks and the loss of data through these forms, disappears," Diacre noted.

Google, for its part, is putting a strong focus on developing cloud computing applications. Among them, Google Docs for document collaboration and Google Video, allowing organizations to develop training materials, video messages, and presentations collaboratively, "kind of like YouTube for the enterprise."

During his address, Diacre used a projector and screen to demonstrate how Google Spreadsheets could be posted online to lay out basic information on all 50 United States. Dan Israel, Federal Product Marketing Manager, Google, collaborated with him on the project.

A key advantage of a cloud computing application, Diacre explained, is that no matter how many colleagues are collaborating, "you're actually sharing the same document, so if Dan makes a change at 2:00 p.m. and I'm working at 2:05 p.m., I can see his changes," Diacre noted. "He doesn't have to send them to me, he didn't have to notify me."

Another benefit is security. Within a cloud computing application, the document is housed in a secure environment, and if an employee, for whatever reason, is no longer part of the team, their access privileges to the document can be immediately rescinded. Free Google applications have basic security measures, Diacre noted, but by paying a subscription fee, organizations can ensure that the security involved meets their own risk tolerance and organizational requirements.

In the case of Google's online applications, they are built to be fully interoperable, so colleagues can collaborate even if they use different Web browsers, and when a document is completed, it can be exported to a PDF file, an Excel spreadsheet, Lotus Notes, or any other application. "We have this culture of playing well with others, so although we recognize that this is a new way of doing business and we are constantly adding new features and functionality, we see this as really being complementary to the applications organizations and employees already use today."

Finally, cloud computing allows users to take full advantage of the Internet's intelligence. In the case of Diacre's demonstration, he noted that "although I definitely do not know all the capitals of the states, I do have access to Google Lookup (a formula that allows the user to pose a factual query)."

Using that function, as well as the spreadsheet's functions, he was able to immediately populate the designated capital field for all 50 states, as well as the state flowers and trees, a step that drew enthusiastic applause from the audience. "Instantaneously, with a couple of clicks, I just made a complicated job really, really easy," he stated.