Healthcare giant Roche has announced it will be moving 90,000 workers to Google’s cloud-based Apps platform, in a move the company hopes will improve collaboration between workers.
According to Dr. Alan Hippe, CFO and CIO of the Roche Group, there was one specific issue that was causing problems for the company. "For the last two and a half years, our two different email and calendaring platforms have often been an obstacle for effective collaboration," he wrote on Google’s blog.
The ability for workers to carry out their duties from anywhere in the world was one of the key attractions of Google’s platform, Dr. Hippe said.
"The way our employees communicate and collaborate is diverse, and our employees are spread across over 140 countries," he said. "The integrated and socially-focused way that Google Apps enables collaboration is very compelling, and we expect this to not only bring our company closer together, but give us a strategic advantage."
"Employees will be able to access their email and documents from any web-enabled device, without using remote access systems such as VPN. This will make it easier for employees to work from home or on the go and it will reduce the strain on our IT support teams," he added.
The addition of Roche to Google’s Apps portfolio follows the recent announcement of its biggest ever rollout, when Spanish bank BBVA, one of the largest financial institutions in the world, agreed to shift 110,000 workers in 26 countries to the platform.
That was also one of the most significant rollouts as it was the first large-scale cloud move by a bank, an industry that has traditionally shunned the cloud over security features. That announcement came just after the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) abandoned its plan to move the Google Apps because it said the service cannot meet stringent FBI security guidelines.
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