The phone is big and powerful, boasting a 4.65-inch display and LTE, which is one of the fastest 4G networks available worldwide.

Based on demonstrations today, Ice Cream Sandwich marks the most polished version of Android yet. Improved usability will make it easier to conduct tasks in fewer steps, and an improved user interface has better graphics and typefaces.

It’s too early to tell how evolutionary Android 4.0 is, or if it’s more revolutionary. One of the tangible differences between it and Apple’s new iPhone 4S is a built-in near field communications chip, which will allow two users to tap with NFC-enabled phones to share any content on the phone, from a map to a news article. It will also support mobile payments, including Google’s own wallet.

From earlier:

Samsung and Google are gathering reporters in Hong Kong Thursday morning to talk about the next version of Android called Ice Cream Sandwich.

However, I’ll be watching a live webcast of the event from back here in the states, where it is evening.

The event was rescheduled by Google and Samsung for today after the two companies graciously delayed the news after the passing of Apple’s Steve Jobs.

Now, perhaps enough time has gone by to talk about whether Ice Cream Sandwich (or ICS, for short) has passed Apple’s recently released iOS 5 in terms of features and functionality.

So far, not much has been officially revealed about the software as All Things D’s Ina Fried pointed out this morning. The answers we’ll be looking for are around what improvements it will offer, how it will compete with iOS 5, and, ultimately, availability.

At the minimum, it is the expectation that Ice Cream Sandwich will eliminate some fragmentation in the OS by tying the last two releases together. Gingerbread was for phones and Honeycomb was for tablets. Now, Ice Cream Sandwich is for both.

The software is expected to be backwards compatible with existing hardware and should be available in time for the holidays. Since Samsung is also participating in the event, expect some new hardware, too!

Here’s the live blog:

6:58 pm: Please stand by, the event is starting shortly.

Lots of the news has already leaked out. We are going to hear all about Ice Cream Sandwich, and the Galaxy Nexus, which will be Google’s latest flagship phone.

All the details for the gadget have been handed out to the press who are attending the event in person. But the crafty people at the Verge have all the details, from pictures to video to hands-on already.

Samsung’s head of public relations, Kim Titus, is on stage introducing the President of Samsung Mobile, J.K. Shin.

7:04 pm: Shin says that it is Samsung’s close relationship with Google that has allowed it to become the largest Android smartphone manufacturer.

He’s on stage to announce the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone.

It will be enabled with LTE for rapid wireless speeds via Verizon Wireless in the U.S., and depending on consumer demand, there will be an HSPA+ version, which today in the U.S. would work on T-Mobile USA and AT&T.

To help introduce the phone, Shin is introducing his friend from Google, Andy Rubin.

Rubin is very excited! It’s their next flagship phone, running Android 4.0!

We want it to be easy to use, and intuitive to use and predict what the user wants to do next. We want the customer feeling satisfied.

7:08 pm: Google wants to include all of Google’s cloud services, so it works intuitively, even when it’s in your pocket.

To illustrate how well this latest version of the operating system works, Google has a video.

That was really short. Basically a screenshot of the phone.

Now for the photo ops. Rubin and Shin holding phones together for the cameras. Awkward silence.

7:10 pm: Here are more details from Kevin Packingham.

Packingham repeats that Samsung is the largest manufacturer of Android phones. I guess there are no hard feelings yet about Google buying Motorola.

Packingham confirms both HSPA+ and LTE, depending on the market.

He said the Galaxy Nexus is the first Android smartphone, featuring Android 4.0 and LTE. That means it’s fast. The software and the network.

Here’s all the nitty gritty of the phone.

The phone will have the best screen, best processor, and quite possibly one of the largest screens at 4.65 inches. (Tablets are commonly 7 and 10 inches, for perspective.)

7:17 pm: Samsung has retained the rounded edge found on the Nexus S that is for sale on Sprint’s network currently.

Lots of other details being shared here, like a “hyperskin” back that keeps it from slipping out of your hand, and a “buttonless” design.

Some other features: 1.2 GHz, a five megapixel camera with zero shutter lag, and a forward-facing camera. It has NFC, of course, which will offer “a broad number of mobile payments options,” probably like Google Wallet.

In November it will go on sale in the U.S., Asia and Europe.

7:21 pm: Now Google is on stage. Here’s Matias Duarte.

He asks a very touchy-feely question: What is the soul of Android?

People said they needed it and wanted it, but they didn’t LOVE Android. We set out goals to guide how people would talk about Android: It’s enchanting. It’s easy. It simplifies my life. And, Android should make me feel powerful and smart.

The first example he’s offering of this is “Roboto,” which is a totally new look for Android. It offers a new bold typeface, starting from the homescreen.

One of people’s favorite parts of Android is their homescreen, it’s their personal space.

At the bottom of the screen, there are virtual buttons, such as phone and contacts. They disappear in some apps, though, like watching video.

7:27 pm: One of the demonstrations is showing off how features are better organized on the phone. One of the more difficult things on Android is finding or creating files, but these things have become a little less complex.

But the homescreen is also for speed dial shortcuts.

Ice Cream allows you to organize your favorites tray at the bottom of the screen, so you are always one click away from what you want to do.

One of Android’s best attributes is multi-tasking. Now it’s easier to see what apps you were recently using, and easily flick away apps you are done with to save on processing power.

7:30 pm: Notifications are better than ever. In Ice Cream Sandwich, music will be added to the screen and users can flick away notifications they don’t want to read.

Google says it gave the keyboard a lot of love in Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s more accurate, and there’s an in-line spell checker. Cut, copy and paste is also better. You can drag highlighted words or cut or copy like usual.

Google has always had voice to text, but with Apple’s announcement of Siri, it will have to up its game. Now they are saying voice transcription is “instant.” No need to push a button, even if you pause while dictating. Words show up very quickly.

Another new feature that’s pretty futuristic: Face unlock. The phone recognizes your face and unlocks the screen.

Uh oh, the demo isn’t working. Duarte’s phone didn’t recognize him. He jokes that his stage make-up was heavier than he thought.

7:35 pm: Google is now demonstrating the browser, which has lots of tabs and automatically syncs bookmarks from your Chrome laptop (if you have one …).

One nice feature is that you are able to save Web sites offline, like bus schedules or mobile boarding tickets in case you don’t have service when you need the information.

Google is now showing off the new Gmail, which they hope is the best mobile email anywhere (I thought BlackBerry held that title?).

Roboto makes the text insanely crisp and makes it a pleasure to read, and users are able to swipe to the right and left to change inboxes.

Lots of updates that are refining the Android experience, but nothing revolutionary. For instance, there’s offline search, so you can find an email or contact even when you aren’t online. They also updated the calendar app to pinch to zoom, so you can see details of a very busy day.

7:40 pm: Here’s a feature for carriers on data usage. The new features help you understand your data usage and give you controls to better manage it.

For instance, you can set alerts, or you can set limits to cut off mobile data, or it will forecast your monthly usage based on your past behavior.

Welcome to the world of limited data plans!

7:42 pm: A photo update: Google has worked closely with Samsung to improve the camera.

From the lock screen, you can drag to the left to snap a picture. By tapping on the photo, you can share to a number of locations. In this demo, they are conveniently sharing to Google+ and not Facebook.

The camera has zero shutter lag. It’s instant and you can take a number of shots in one rapid fire.

After taking the photo, you can crop it, remove red eye, or apply a “hipster” filter.

A new Ice Cream Sandwich feature for the camera is panoramic shots. Easily shoot a landscape and the phone will stitch together the photos seamlessly.

The camera also allows you to shoot 1080p video.

Users will be able to shoot time-lapsed videos and add filters to make shots and videos look amazing.

7:49 pm: The next new feature of Ice Cream Sandwich is “The People app.”

This is a new contact list of sorts that pulls in information from various social networks, like LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. It’s open to any social network.

A lot of these new features add a lot of finishes to Android. Nicer graphics and typeface and a greater emphasis on photos to show contacts, make phone calls, etc.

The last thing they are showing us today is a new feature called Android Beam that allows you to share any content between phones using NFC.

Two phones must touch together in order to share a news article, or a map, YouTube videos, people cards and a bunch of other things.

You can even share apps to send a person directly to the Android Market page to download the same app.

It can be used to set up a multiplayer game, or a chat discussion. The APIs are shipping with Ice Cream Sandwich and open to developers.

7:57 pm: The phone isn’t available until November, but starting today, developers can download the SDK to start developing apps for the new platform.

That’s it for the demonstration.

And that’s it for the liveblog. The presentation is over.

No pricing information, and no carrier announcements other than NTT DoCoMo in Japan, so presumably, stay tuned for more information.

Apple’s (AAPL) iPhone 4 death-grip drama came to a head this morning at a news conference at which Steve Jobs, saying no smartphone was immune to antenna issues, promised free cases for all owners and a liberal return policy. Here’s the the live blog.

[Update: Apple has provided a video of the presentation on its Web site. It's not embeddable, but here's the link.]

9:40 am: We’re here at the Apple (AAPL) campus in Cupertino. The assembled press, a smaller crowd than usual, is waiting to enter Building 4 for the event.

10:00 am: Inside the auditorium now. This is easily the smallest Apple event I’ve ever attended — there are actually empty seats.

A quick scan of the front row reveals pretty much all of Apple’s executive bench to be in the house: Tim Cook, Bertrand Serlet, Bob Mansfield, Scott Forstall and Phil Schiller.

10:04 am: The event begins with a music video: “The iPhone Antenna Song.”

It’s a sing-a-long: “If you don’t want an iPhone 4, don’t buy it. If you don’t like it, bring it back.”

10:06 am: And Jobs takes the stage with a big grin on his face. “We saw that video on YouTube and couldn’t help but share it.”

10:06 am: “We’re not perfect,” says Jobs. “We know that and you know that. Phones aren’t perfect either….We want to make our users happy. That’s what Apple is all about.”

10:07 am: The iPhone 4 is perhaps the best product we’ve ever made at Apple and we’ve sold over three million since we launched it just three weeks ago, he says, noting that the device has been well reviewed in major publications and has a high satisfaction rate to boot.

10:08 am: “However,” says Jobs, “we began getting reports about antenna issues…and this has since been dubbed ‘antennagate.’…We heard about this just 22 days ago and Apple is an engineering-driven company and the way that we work is that we want to understand what the problem is before we come up with a real solution.”

10:09 am: “We’ve been working our butts off for the past few weeks to do that with antennagate.”

Jobs notes that attenuation problems are not unique to the iPhone 4. He rolls some videos demonstrating similar signal deterioration when a BlackBerry Bold is held in a particular way.

Another video, this one of the HTC Eris. Again the phone’s bar display drops drastically when held in a particular way.

10:12 am: Same thing with the Samsung Omnia. “It’s got 4 bars to start,’ says Jobs. “We grip it in a familiar way and the signal drops.”

10:13 am: “These phones were all tested in areas of relatively weak signal strength and they all dropped bars….This is life in the smartphone industry….Smartphones are not perfect.”

10:14 am: Jobs suggests that the controversy over the iPhone 4′s antenna issue is partially the result of the fact that the “dead spot” is so easily visible on the iPhone 4′s exterior. “X marks the spot,” he says.

10:16 am: A quick overview of Apple’s state-of-the-art antenna lab, which is pretty impressive looking. “This is a state of the art antenna test facility,” Jobs says. “We have 17 anechoic chambers. These things are not cheap. We have invested over $100 million in antenna testing facilities over the past 5 years. We have 18 PhD scientists and engineers on our staff. And so the iPhone antenna went through all of this. We tested it. We knew that if you gripped it in a certain way, the bars are going to go down a little bit, just like every smartphone. We didn’t think it’d be a big problem, because every smartphone has this issue.”

10:17 am: Jobs notes again that antenna design is a challenge for the entire industry. “Smartphones have weak spots….You can grab them in the course of normal use and you will drop reception.”

A quick discussion of AppleCare statistics on iPhone 4 user antenna/reception complaints. “If you’ve read the media coverage you’d think, Jesus, at least half of our customers have called in to complain,” says Jobs. “So what’s the real percentage? 0.55 percent.”

10:20 am: And what of return rates? Jobs notes that AT&T (T) has a buyer’s remorse program that allows users to return their phone if they’re unhappy with it. So what have AT&T’s return rates been like for the iPhone 4?

Jobs says return rates for the iPhone 3GS were 6.0 percent, which is below the industry average.

Return rates for the iPhone 4: 1.7 percent.

“That’s less than a third of the return rates for the iPhone 3GS,” says Jobs.

10:22 am: A final data point. A dropped call metric from AT&T. “How do call drops on iPhone 4 compare to those on the 3GS?” asks Jobs. “I can tell you that even though we believe the iPhone 4 is superior to the 3GS, the iPhone 4 drops more calls per hundred than the 3GS.”

10:24 am: So how many more calls does it drop?

Here’s the hard data, says Jobs. “The iPhone 4 drops less than one additional call per hundred than the iPhone 3GS.”

“Now even less than one is too much for us, but this does put things in perspective,” Jobs adds.

10:25 am: Noting that there are fewer third-party cases available for the iPhone 4 than the iPhone 3GS at launch, Jobs theorizes that the number of caseless iPhones on the street has further exacerbated the iPhone 4′s reported reception issues. “So, I have my own pet theory on this, which we have no proof of, but I’ll give it to you anyway,” he says. “When the iPhone 3GS came out, we did not change the design from the iPhone 3, and there was a healthy market of cases for the iPhone 3G that fit the 3GS perfectly because the design didn’t change. And in our stores, 80 percent of the iPhone 3GS users walked out with a case. iPhone 4 has a radically new design; none of the old cases fit. Since we didn’t show it to anybody, none of the new cases are ready, and we can’t make enough of our bumper cases. And so in our stores, about 20 percent of the people are going out with a case. And I think that has something to do with this disparity.”

10:27 am: Now a quick overview of the data points offered so far:

Smartphones have weak spots
Few complaints to AppleCare
Few returns to AT&T

“So this issue is affecting a small percentage of our users,” says Jobs.

10:28 am: “But we are about every user” says Jobs. “So what are we going to do?”

First: The update to iOS 4 Apple released yesterday.

Second: We’re going to give everyone a free bumper case. “One for every iPhone 4…if you’ve already bought one, we’ll give you a refund… through Sept. 30.”

10:30 am: “We will send you a free case,” says Jobs. ” But we can’t make enough bumpers…so what we’re going to do is offer users a choice of cases.”

Users can apply for a case on the Apple Web site beginning next week.

10:31 am: “And if after that,” says Jobs, “you are still unhappy with your iPhone, you can return it for a refund and we’ll waive the restocking fee.”

10:31 am: And now a few other iPhone 4 updates. Jobs mentions complaints about the proximity sensor. He says the company plans to have a fix for it soon.

10:32 am: The white iPhone 4 will begin shipping later this month

10:33 am: And finally, on July 30, Apple will begin shipping the iPhone 4 to a number of new countries.

10:33 am: On to final remarks now: “We love our users,” says Jobs. “We do our best to delight and surprise them. We work our asses off for our users.”

He runs through a list of Apple innovations, notes what the company has done for the retail experience (free Genius Bar appointments, One to One service, etc.)

“And when we fall short,” he adds, “we try harder. And when we succeed they reward us by staying our users….So when we have problems like this, we take it really personally….We all read this stories, and if a user is having a problem, it’s our problem….So we’ve been working really, really hard for the past 22 days to understand the problem and solve it, and we think we’ve gotten to the heart of the problem: Smartphones have weak spots.”

10:37 am: “The data supports the fact that the iPhone 4 is the best phone in the world,” Jobs concludes. “There is no antennagate; there’s a challenge for the entire industry to improve their phones to where there are no reception issues.”

10:38 am: Moving on to the Q&A now.

First question: How’s your health, Steve?

“I’m doing fine…feeling great.”

10:38 am: Considering any changes to the antenna design?

Jobs: “We’re pretty happy with the antenna in the iPhone 4; it’s better than the iPhone 3G’s antenna in almost every way….We’re getting lots of reports from customers who say their reception has actually improved…so we’re not feeling right now that there’s a giant problem we need to fix.”

Jobs: “We have a lot of iPhones in a lot of hands and most people don’t seem to be having problems.”

10:41 am: A question about grip variation. Why does touching the antenna with a single finger sometimes cause signal to drop?

“The body is an effective signal absorber…so the fact that you’ve bridged the gap between the antennas, you’re attenuating the signal.”

10:43 am: A question referencing yesterday’s Bloomberg article: Was Jobs warned about potential iPhone antenna issues?

“You’re referring to the Bloomberg article,” Jobs replies. “Yeah, that was a total crock. We challenge them to come up with any evidence to prove it….I talked to Rubin (the antenna engineer mentioned in the article) and he says it’s total bullshit from his point of view as well.”

10:45 am: Is Apple apologizing to its customers and investors?

Jobs: “I apologize to our customers … But investors … We want investors for the long haul. To those investors who bought the stock and are down $5, I have no apology. … We make great products, and if we hit a bump in the road…it’s just like having kids.”

10:46 am: Q: Is Apple a company that makes users choose between form and function?

Jobs: No. We are a company that likes to do both. You know, you look at an iPod touch and it’s wonderfully thin and it costs us extra to do that well, but we do it. The iPhone 4 antenna is an exterior antenna that doesn’t use internal space, so we can use that additional space for battery, storage, etc. We try to have our cake and eat it too.

10:48 am: Q: Is AT&T giving full refunds to unhappy iPhone 4 users and allowing them to break their contracts?

Jobs: I believe so.

10:50 am: “What we’re learning through this process is that part of our role as an industry leader in this space is to educate,” says Jobs. “So that’s what we’re doing. We’re gathering data and sharing it…and we will continue to devise products that have fewer of these issues, but right now to our knowledge it’s not possible to design a phone that does that….I mean you could make a really, really big phone…a Hummer of a phone, but then no one would want to buy it.”

10:51 am: Jobs says, “I can tell you right up front, we are not perfect. We are human…we make mistakes….We don’t know everything, but we figure things out pretty fast…and we love our customers and appreciate them. We don’t take them for granted and we work hard to keep them.”

10:53 am: Q from Consumer Reports: Does the refund apply to third-party cases?

Jobs says no. Because there are very few third-party cases available, there aren’t really enough in the market to justify a refund.

10:56 am: Q for the team: Do any of you carry your iPhone 4s with bumpers?

Cook, Jobs and Mansfield all raise their phones and none of them has a case. (Laughter)

10:57 am: Give this debacle, what will Apple do differently with its next product launch.

Jobs says he needs to get a little distance before he can really speak to that.

“We were stunned and upset and embarrassed by the Consumer Reports stuff that came out this week, but we didn’t need that to know that we had to take care of our customers….But we weren’t silent because we were ignoring it, we were silent because we were working to understand it….If we had spoken out on this a week ago, we wouldn’t have had the data we needed….Some people have wanted us to run a little faster, and honestly I don’t think we could….We have people here all night…there are cots in the engineering department.”

11:00 am: More from Jobs–”One thing I’ve learned is that when there’s a successful organization, people want to tear it down….It’s happening to Google now. Google’s a great company, but people are tearing them down. They’re doing the same thing to us. … What’s the purpose in that?…Would you prefer, that we’re a Korean company? Do you not like the fact that we’re an American company leading the world right here? …Sometimes I feel that these Web sites in search of eyeballs don’t know what they leave in their wake….We’ve been around for how many years? Don’t we have the trust from the press that we will address issues like this when they arise? I didn’t see that this week….Now we weren’t innocents in this, but the reaction to this based on the data we have has been so overblown that to digest it and determine what we can do better is going to take us some time.”

11:04 am: Jobs reiterates that the number of customers encountering iPhone 4 attenuation issues is small, but that the company still wants to make them happy. Hence today’s announcement of free iPhone 4 cases.

11:05 am: Q–Did you even consider a recall?

Jobs: “You know when you love your customers as much as we do, nothing is off the table. But we are a data-driven company.”

Jobs describes Apple’s efforts to track this issue, talks about sending engineers across the country to analyze it and develop a solution. Evidently, in some cases engineers were dispatched to the homes of customers who’d complained about attenuation.

“We called them first, of course,” jokes Mansfield.

11:08 am: Question about a possible software fix for signal attenuation. This was mentioned in the New York Times report this morning.

Jobs takes issue with the question, stresses that attenuation is an industrywide issue.

Scott Forstall steps up to address the Times article and the “latent software issue” it mentions. “That’s patently false,” he says.

Jobs chimes in: “One of many such statements we’ve seen over the past week.”

11:12 am: Jobs says, “We can’t make the iPhone 4 fast enough….We are way behind demand.”

11:13 am: Q–What impact will this have on your bottom line?

Tim Cook: We’re announcing results next week. We’ll hold off on discussing things like that until then.

11:15 am: Question about iPhone 4 sales.

Tim Cook: “We are selling every phone we can make right now.”

11:18 am: Jobs–”If you don’t own the primary technology, the company that does is going to beat you in the end….We want to own or control the primary technology for the businesses that we’re in….We decided that for us, software was the most important component….So we brought software to the phone business in a way that hadn’t been seen before….So we’ve been able to create and frictionlessly distribute software updates seamlessly since the iPhone first launched….We were the first ones to really do that in a practical way.”

11:22 am: A question about the recent spike in Jobs’s emailing Apple customers. Has Apple shifted the way it communicates with its customers?

Jobs: I get a lot of emails, my email address is out there, and sometimes I answer them. And now people have begun posting them to the Web–which is rude. And now there’s this new phenomenon, where people are just making them up. But this is something I’ve always done.

11:25 am: So was that helpful, Jobs asks the audience before delivering a final quip:

“I wish we could have done this in 48 hours, but then you wouldn’t have had as much to write about.”

And that’s it. The event’s ended.

PREVIOUSLY

• iPhone 4 Full Coverage on AllThingsD.com
• What Will Apple Say Tomorrow? Your Guess Is as Good as My Analyst’s.
• Apple Releases iOS 4.0.1 for iPhone, iOS 3.2.1 for iPad
• The Reality Distortion Field Appears to Be Suffering Attenuation Issues as Well
• Analyst: “Highly Unlikely” iPhone 4 Recall Could Cost Apple $1.5 Billion
• Apple Snips Needling Threads From iPhone 4 Forums
• IPhone 4 Recall? Get a Grip!
• Consumer Reports: By the Way, the iPhone 4 is Also the Best Smartphone on the Market
• Duct-Tape Makers Look for Boost From Consumer Reports iPhone Verdict
• Consumer Reports: We Can’t Recommend the iPhone 4
• Apple: Your iPhone 4 Antenna Is Fine, and So Is Your Reception–But We’re Fixing Our Software Anyway
• Grip Different: Apple, AT&T Sued Over iPhone 4 Antenna Issue
• Gripping Antenna Drama Won’t Hold iPhone 4 Back, Says Analyst
• Apple on iPhone 4 Reception Problems: Grip Different

As everyone in the world knows by now, CEO Steve Jobs has launched the Apple (AAPL) iPad tablet today at an event in San Francisco.

As Digital Daily’s John Paczkowski writes in his liveblog of the confab, starting with a quote from Jobs:

“All of us use laptops and smartphones now. And the question has arisen lately: Is there room for a device in the middle….We’ve pondered this question as well.”

This “middle” device, says Jobs, must be better at doing certain tasks than either the laptop or smartphone. If there’s going to be a third category of device, it must be better at browsing the Web, video, photos, music, etc.

“Some folks say this device is a netbook….Problem is, the netbook isn’t good at any of these things.”

But we have something that is, says Jobs, “and it’s called the iPad.”

The event is still going on, as Jobs rolls out all the various bells and whistles of the software, pointing out various multimedia and mobile innovations that set the iPad apart.

At an event in San Francisco, Google is expected to discuss the future of its productivity suite and some enhancements that may begin to close the gap with Microsoft (MSFT) Office, something the company desperately needs to do if it wants to make deeper inroads in the enterprise area.

As Girouard himself admitted last week, Apps still has a ways to go. “Gmail is really the best email application in the world for consumers or business users, and we can prove that very well,” he said. “Calendar is also very good, and probably almost at the level of Gmail. But the word processing, spreadsheets and other products are much less mature. They’re a couple of years old at the most, and we still have a lot of work to do.”

In a few hours we’ll learn just how much work has been done and how much is left. Join us for live coverage beginning at 10 a.m. PDT (1 p.m. EDT).

• The title of this morning’s presentation is “Google Apps: The Enterprise Cloud.” Presiding over it, Andrew Kovaks from Google’s cloud computing team and Dave Girouard, president of Google’s Enterprise division. According to the schedule provided, it will feature a CIO roundtable discussion as well as some new product demos.
• Girouard kicks things off with a quick overview of the business. Google is a 10-and-a-half-year-old company, he says, adding that Google Apps is about half as old as that. “We’re about five, five-and-a-half years into this initiative.”
• Girouard says the current recession has made cloud computing more urgent, more necessary. “This has been a really difficult environment. Everyone is feeling it and we need to respond…It’s important to invest in difficult times, especially during times when everything is telling you to cut back.” Great companies thrive during downturns, he notes, adding that Google is investing in Apps, because the company views it as an area the company can grow into for quite some time to come.
• Looking backwords for a moment, Girouard notes that this particular side of Google’s business was born out the company’s search app and then Gmail. Gmail, he adds, was initially conceived as an internal app before it was rolled out to the consumer market.
• A few interesting data points:

  –70 percent of the universities in the U.S. are in the process of outsourcing or moving their email to a cloud computing solution.

  –Google now has 1.75 million businesses on Google Apps.

  –It has more than 15 million active ursers.

  –Dozens of Apps customers with more than 1,000 employees.

• Increasingly, larger companies are moving to Google Apps. Among them, Genentech (DNA), the first large business to “go Google.” A Genentech rep is on hand to talk up the company’s experience which, obviously, was a positive one.

  Also, a recent advocate of Google Apps, Avago–the first company with over $1.5 billion in revenue to use Google Apps as a suite. “We save over $1.6 million a year using Google Apps,” says the Avago rep.

  Another recent Google App convert, Morgans Hotel Group, the proprietor of the Clift Hotel, at which this event is being held. The Clift rep says the platform has had a tremendous impact on the company already and it’s only just made the switch.

• So, why are companies adopting Google Apps? A few reasons: Radically lower costs, obviously. But also a steady stream of innovation. We haven’t exactly seen that from Google yet as I noted in the introduction, but presumably there will be some evidence of it on display later this morning.

  To be fair, Google did make a few additions to Apps last year–APIs and whatnot. Girouard offers Gmail offline and Secure Data Connector as examples of this. The company has made other smaller enhancements as well, such as extensibility features and enterprise Interoperability features.

• Interesting. Girouard says Google Apps often provides a 3X cost savings over other non-cloud solutions. He also says Google believes it has a more reliable product than most. The company is holding itself to that claim by being more transparent about downtime and service incidents. He notes the Apps Status Dashboard, which tracks up and downtime, as a move in this direction.
• “Failure is not an option,” says Girouard. His mandate to his team: There can be no failed deployments. Enterprise deployment and support must be streamlined and easy.
• All this is wonderful, but what’s the company got that is new today? Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook for one thing. The App allows users to sync Outlook with Apps just like Outlook natively syncs with Exchange. Offers fast email sync with Google-native protocol, full calendar and contact sync, as well as global address autocomplete and search and free/busy information support.

  Google has essentially recreated the Outlook GUI within Apps. Seemless integration. Works offline. Same familiar Outlook experience. Use Gmail and outlook simultaneously. Everything is supported natively and, as the demoer notes, “your data is safe, it’s with Google.” Well, that’s one way to look at it.

  Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Outlook is available today as part of the company’s Premiere Apps. It’s available for Windows only and it is an enterprise-only service. It is, however, available for free to non-profits and educational institutions.

• A few quick case studies: Avago rep says this represents the “last hurdle” for users to get over migrating away form Exchange. The feedback we’ve gotten is that this looks “exactly the same” as Exchange. Genentech rep relates a similar experience. “It looks like a native Outlook experience. The average has no idea we switched out the back-end…We anticipate widepsread adoption.”
• Girouard: “I bet you never imagined you’d see Google demonstrating Outlook for you all, so this is a first.”
• Moving on now to the Q&A:
• Question: How much revenue flows through this?

  Girouard: Hundreds of millions of dollars…that’s as explicit as we’ll get.

• Q: How is the company dealing with Microsoft and its entrenchment in this particular sector?

  Long meandering answer that ends with this: The company has a new App Reseller program that it debuted in April. It will give it more feet on the street and expand the ecosystem. That’s a start, I suppose.

• Q: Is Outlook the only app that makes sense for this sort of sync, or is the company considering doing something similar with Excel and PowerPoint as well?

  Google’s clearly already put a lot of thought into this and expects to pursue it. That said, says Girouard: “We don’t view the world as you’ve got to get rid of Office and use Google Apps instead. We see it as more nuanced than that.”

• Q: Did the IT folks in the room have any concerns about Google’s commitment to these services?

  Apparently not. The Morgans Hotel rep says has has “no reservations about the future viability of the product.” Gmail’s been around for a while now, hasn’t it? Also, notes Avago guy: “Don’t be evil is one of Google’s core values…We’re taking them at their word.”

Interesting comment from Genentech rep amid remarks out mobile needs: “I can’t get Android phones fast enough for our folks.”

• Q: What areas are showstoppers for CIOs considering a migration to Google Apps? What services and apps do they absolutely need to retain control over?

  The Morgans Hotel rep says none. “We’re looking to move everything to the cloud.” The Avago and Genentech reps say pretty much the same thing. The Genentech rep: “Anything in the cloud is fine by us.”

• Q: What areas can developers play in without being crushed by Google?

  Giouard says there are many. “We’re going to have a very large installed base of Google Apps users and there’s a great opportunity here for developers to sell into that…We are really opening up the stack to the developer world and that’s going to be great for our business customers.”

• Q for Genentech rep: At what point will you shut down Outlook?

  “I don’t see us shutting it down any time in the near future, but we hope that the number of Outlook users shrinks as our employees see the benefits of the Web and Google Apps.”

• Asked for his feelings on companies that use the term “cloud computing” to peddle non-cloud computing services, Giouard replies: IT giants have co-opted the cloud computing term.