The fact that Google Apps missed its implementation deadline for its well known Los Angeles account has been widely covered over the last week. The implementation deadline was set at June 30, but to date only 10,000 LA city staff have been shifted over to Google Apps. Another 6,000 workers can expect the move in mid-August. Another 13,000 personnel of the Los Angeles Police Department are supposed to follow that.

Going by these numbers, it seems like the implementation is significantly behind schedule. Back in December 2009, when the deal was finalized, the City of Los Angeles had decided to shift to Google Apps from its aging Novell Groupside system because of substantial cost savings. This delay, because of which the city of LA has to pay license fees for both systems concurrently could run up to $400,000 in costs according to City Council members.

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With the rapid innovation and upgrade cycles in software-as-a-service, we sometimes lose sight of how drastically different this model is from the traditional on premise model. The attention is mostly on the most recent upgrade.

However, taking a step back and reflecting on the larger picture makes sense once in a while. This is exactly what Hicham Alaoui, Google Apps Marketing Manager provided us in a recent webinar he hosted. He ran us through a whopping 50 improvements made to Google Apps only in the last 6 months (adding to 100 improvements in 2009).  Compare this with traditional desktop based software where upgrade cycles are typically of 3-4 years.

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The Google Bee had earlier written about Google planning to allow Google Apps users access to extended Google services. An official Google Help page further explains what this integration would entail.

This is going to take some explaining

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GMail now allows you to open the Word attachments in your mail (.doc, .docx) right from your browser, even if you don't have MS Word installed locally.

There is a "view" button beside your attachment which opens it in a browser.

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A much wanted feature has been added to Google Apps, as Christopher Dawson reported yesterday. Google Apps now supports management of multiple domains from a centralized Google Apps administrative panel. At first viewing, this new development brings great relief to administrators, who have to manage separate domains within the same organization from separate consoles.

For example, it is not uncommon for a college to have Google Apps on separate domains for students, teachers and administrative staff. Or for a company to have separate domains for different divisions. Part of the reason is that the management wants separate groups to have access to dedicated email extensions, and separate information and Google Apps modules.

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Google Apps may hold only a miniscule portion of the messaging market, with only around 1m odd users, but slowly and surely, one win at a time, it is spreading its reach.