January 6, 2023 • 44 mins
TalkingHeadz is an interview format series featuring the movers and shakers of enterprise communications - we also have great guests. In this episode, we check in with Raluca Monet of Google's Chrome Enterprise Recommended (CER) Team.
Chrome is a very popular internet browser, but there's more to than many realize. Chrome Enterprise offers organizations a number of advanced features. Chrome Enterprise Recommended recognizes solutions that leverage Chromebooks, Chrome Desks, and ChromeOS.
Chrome Enterprise offers a number of management and security features that can benefit a variety of use cases. There are several CER programs, and in this episode we dive into CER CCaaS.
Although Chrome can work with several premises-based solutions, the CCaaS sectors have embraced the browser over traditional software clients. Once the agent's desktop is on a browser, why bother with a full PC? Chromebooks are less expensive to purchase, secure, deploy, and maintain.
Raluca works directly with CXO level executives to improve profitability and create sustainable growth for corporations. Raluca’s areas of expertise include strategy formulation, organizational transformation, operational strategy, profit improvement and performance measurement. She joined Google in 2015.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Dave Michels (00:12):
Welcome to talking to us today we'll be talking
about room lookup on a of GoogleChrome. But before that, Evan
Happy New Year,
Evan Kirstel (00:19):
Happy New Year, happy holidays, we're off to a
brand new year
Dave Michels (00:24):
now that 2022 is behind it. This is the problem.
Everyone does their their yearend post at the year end. And
the year is not over yet. So nowthat we're in January, what was
to you? The biggest story of2022. For me,
Evan Kirstel (00:39):
it was generative AI, aka Dolly, chat, GPT. and
the like. I think the revolutionis going to be so interesting,
disruptive, whatever you want tocall it, that we have no idea
what to head.
Dave Michels (00:57):
Well, you know, most people will say that a lot
of this AI isn't all that usefuland everything. But I saw you
put a good use to it. I saw youdoing a poem on social networks.
Evan Kirstel (01:06):
I've been doing poems I've just released 18
blogs at once in four differentlanguages. My SEO is through the
roof. But in all seriousness,the quality of the prose of the
writing, the humor, theintelligence, the punctuation,
whatever metric you want to gointo is extraordinary. And I
(01:29):
don't think people realize theimplication of all this. I'm
just so astounded by what'shappening with generative AI, as
they call it.
Dave Michels (01:37):
I don't know what to think. So I guess I'll have
to ask the chat GPT for aconclusion on all this.
Evan Kirstel (01:43):
Well, I've just finished a blog on this as we've
been talking, and in about threeseconds that will be published
in 30 seconds. And I don't knowyou make a living out of ideas
and writing. Do you see this asan opportunity as a threat as
something else altogether?
Dave Michels (02:02):
Well, I think it's very interesting. And there's
certainly no denying that it's abreakthrough. And, you know,
they, they often talk about howlong it takes to get a million
users or some like that. And,and I think Chad GPT did it in
less than a week. And so it'svery impressive technology,
there's no question about it.
And, and people are realizing,you know, the next generation of
AI is actually coming because,you know, like Google's have
this next generation of AI thatone of their employees thought
(02:23):
was sentient and got fired forit. But they haven't made it
public. They haven't reallyshown it to people. And so this
was this was an eye openingexperience. You know, I always
see the glass half empty, as youoften point out. And I'm not
that impressed because he writeswell, but it makes up everything
and just kind of, I had to do abiography on somebody that I was
interested in. And they saidthat this person wrote this
(02:45):
book, and it said, Well, I wantto read that book. You know, and
I'm looking for this book,right? It just made that up. He
didn't write this book, youknow, and the book had a great
title and
Evan Kirstel (02:55):
read my writing.
It's completely made up. So Imean,
Dave Michels (02:58):
that's the response is that, you know,
there wasn't there was anarticle about Welcome to the
future. It's all BS. But so asthe President's you know, so, so
yeah, it's a mirror of our ownsociety. But I'm not as excited
as Intel because a little moretruthful, but whatever.
Evan Kirstel (03:14):
Well, I mean, you're talking about writing,
which is fair enough, but youknow, there's also imaging
there's also video creation,there's also music, and any form
of coffee.
Dave Michels (03:24):
And the best part of it the best part of chat GPT
is it works on a Chromebook.
Evan Kirstel (03:30):
Okay, that's the best part. While speaking of
Chromebook, we have a guest thatknows a thing or two about
Chromebooks. So why don't wechat with her?
god (03:38):
Let's get to talking. It is a semi monthly podcast with
interviews of the top movers andshakers and enterprise
communications andcollaboration. Your host Dave
Michaels and Evan Kirkstall,both of which offer
extraordinary services includingresearch, analysis and social
media marketing. You can findthem on Twitter, LinkedIn, or at
(04:00):
talking points.com. That'spoints with the Z and Evan
kersal.com. That's que ir S T EL.
Dave Michels (04:09):
Today we have with us we're Luca mnay. The Global
Partnerships lead for contactcenter the chromo esteem,
welcome Raluca.
Raluca Monet (04:16):
Thank you. Great to be here.
Dave Michels (04:18):
So we want to start off quick question about
your name. And we're Luca, as Irecall, is a Romanian name but
mo de is associated with France.
So what kind of name is
Raluca Monet (04:30):
I get this question a lot, actually. So a
lot of people also ask me, Hey,are you related to the painter
and I always say, Hey, if youever watched me hold a brush or
try and paint you immediatelyknow that I am not related to
Monet, but you're right or Lucais a Romanian name. I was born
and raised in Romania. It's avery common name. They're
Evan Kirstel (04:52):
very cool. And what kind of name is Dave
Michaels? Anyway? So you've beenat Google for seven years. That
is that eternity in tech time.
How is Google changed over thatseven years? You know, working
from home, for example, do youwork from home at office? What's
that journey been? Like? Yeah,
Raluca Monet (05:11):
gosh, yeah, it's already been seven years. And
just to be completely honest, itdoesn't feel like that at all.
It really went fast.
Dave Michels (05:19):
It feels like 20 years or what?
Raluca Monet (05:22):
No, it just feels like I just joined frankly, and
you know, a lot of that has todo with just Google continue to
feel very startup being on theinside and very fast pace. But
in some ways, it's really thesame company that I joined. And
truly, that has a lot to do withthe company's effort to preserve
the awesome culture that sort ofGoogle is known for. And one of
(05:45):
the big reasons that I actuallyjoined the company initially. So
in some ways, it's the samecompany. And I'm grateful for
that. And in some ways, it'scontinues to change and feel
differently in some pockets. Andagain, it feels very startup
still. And then Evan, I thinkyou also asked me about, you
(06:05):
know, working from home or inthe office, just like a lot of
tech companies sort of willembrace this hybrid model. Some
folks have decided to justcontinue to work from home
permanently. And they haveapplied for that. And some
people continue to do a hybridmodel of three plus two days.
And it's working great. Iactually traveled quite a bit. I
(06:28):
spend a lot of my time withpartners or customers. So you
know, you'd find me out in thefield a lot more time that
probably in almost any office.
Dave Michels (06:39):
Well, I want to get to your chrome partnership
role. But before that, I want toI see that you spent 10 years at
Unisys, what did you do atUnisys. And did that prepare you
at all for your current role atGoogle?
Raluca Monet (06:51):
It most definitely did Unisys the large IT
integrator, right. So just as anorganization led a lot of IT
transformation projects for thegovernment essentially, is the
business unit I was in. And it'sinteresting how at some point
during this journey at Unisys,we started seeing sort of Google
(07:16):
the collaboration suite,becoming part of this IT
transformation projectscontract. So really interesting
for me, I was part of threelarge deployments for what was
back then known as you know, theorganization going Google. So
essentially deploying workspacefor work at this three
(07:37):
government agencies, doing thechange management for it, and
sort of leading this big, youknow, transformational projects,
that really did help me thenmake my next move, which is,
hey, I was just so familiar withGoogle that it was sort of a
very natural step to then, youknow, come to Google and
(07:58):
continue on this journey in theenterprise world.
Evan Kirstel (08:01):
Fantastic. Let me ask you a bit about the history
of Chrome, because I don'tactually recall when Chrome came
about, you can give us a littlebackstory there. I know. You
know, multiple browsers havepretty deep roots. Even David
Michael still uses Netscape. Butwhere did Google make Chrome and
Web?
Raluca Monet (08:22):
Yeah, so Chrome was developed by Google and
released in 2008, is a crossplatform web browser. Chrome was
initially a development projectcodename some people may not
know that, and the CO thinking,you know, from being sort of
this association between Chromewith fast cars and speed. And
(08:43):
what's interesting is thatGoogle kept the development
project name as the finalrelease name, the CEO at the
time, Eric Schmidt, initiallyopposed the development of
another browser, right. Hethought at the time, Google was
too small to take on somethingsignificant of an effort. And he
(09:03):
did not want to sort of competewith with the browsers at the
time. But what's interesting tome is that after the co
founders, Sergey and Larry hiredseveral Mozilla Firefox
developers, and the firstdemonstration of Chrome Schmidt
said that it was so good that itessentially forced me to change
(09:23):
my mind. You know, that's whathe said. So that's the story of
the browser. And then Chrome OScame in 2009. The browser is the
main component of Chrome OS. Itserves as the platform for web
application. And the goal forChrome OS was to and continues
to be to democratize computing,and specifically cloud computing
(09:45):
to users around
Dave Michels (09:46):
the globe. I vividly remember those browser
wars the early when Chrome firstcame out, it was it was ie
versus Chrome, and they wereincompatible in a lot of ways. I
guess. Chrome won the warbecause Microsoft are adopting
chromium in Edge is the warover?
Raluca Monet (10:05):
Well, so first of all, most of Chrome's source
code comes from Google's freeand open source software project
chromium, but Chromium isproprietary. It continues to be
free and it will remain free.
Buddy's proprietary. Edge wasbuilt initially with Microsoft's
own proprietary browser engine.
Around 2018, I would say late2018, it was announced that edge
(10:29):
will be completely rebuilt as achromium based browser. I
personally not a big fan of thisterm of war, because it implies
hostility. And really, eachcompany was trying to build what
they perceived as the best toolfor browsing and accessing
information on the web. So yes,it's true. Microsoft ultimately
(10:51):
adopted the same chrome basis
Evan Kirstel (10:54):
Chrome. Awesome.
Well, Dave and I both haveChromebooks. I have a Samsung
beautiful orange. cool device. Iknow Dave has like an Acer maybe
HP with 4g? To tell us whichvendors the best who's what's
your favorite?
Raluca Monet (11:09):
So I know these devices. Well, I have, then I
still have the Samsung that Ithink that's such a beautiful, I
believe that's the Galaxy right?
Coral, beautiful color. Justsuch a sexy eyecatcher. But I
also have, you know, an Acer andAsus and HP. They're all
beautiful devices. And look,it's hard to say which vendor is
the best? And I couldn't answerbecause we do work with all the
(11:31):
major OEMs to offer a broadrange of form factors. So you
will see beautiful Chromebooksfrom Acer and Asus and Dell, HP,
Lenovo, Samsung, righteverybody. And they come into
just about any form factor youcould imagine. From clamshells
to you know, detachablestouchscreens, not touchscreen.
(11:54):
So just about anything you'dwant to have, you can find a
bail available from the majorOEMs. But glad to hear that you
use Chromebooks and that youlove them.
Dave Michels (12:07):
It's nice, I got to like Evan mentioned and I,
you know, go between themdepending which form factor I
need. But one thing that reallyfrustrates me with the Android
ecosystem is that eachmanufacturer completely
customizes it and the apps aredifferent and the UI is
different. Chrome OS doesn'thave that it's much more
consistent was was thatdeliberate design decision?
Yeah, it
Raluca Monet (12:26):
was. And I do have to defend my Android friends
here. Because surely differentOEMs. And manufacturers all
implement their own version ofAndroid, which is actually a
good thing for differentiationpurposes. With Chrome OS, as you
correctly stated, while it'sbased on open source code, the
OS image comes directly fromGoogle, regardless of who builds
(12:50):
the device. This means thatthere's universal consistency.
So issuing things like bug fixesand security patches or pushing
out content is dramaticallysimplified. And this consistency
is key. And this is what I thinkyou're referring to.
Evan Kirstel (13:07):
Let me clarify something for me if you want. So
there's Chrome browser,obviously. There's Chrome,
mobile, there's Chromebooks.
Like my Samsung, there'ssomething called Chrome desk
even I'm not sure what that is.
So it's Chroma single thing? Areall of these different threads.
Raluca Monet (13:24):
They're not different. They're all related,
right? So Chrome browser is thefoundation is how everything
started. And from there, we'veexpanded into Chrome OS and
Chrome devices, right? All ofthese are connected and related.
And you can use them together,you can use them separately,
depending on sort of what is theuse case that you're looking
(13:46):
for, you know, you canabsolutely go into the full
stack, and to end or you canjust decide that, hey, I just
want to use the browser, youknow, whatever your sort of
whatever the experience you'relooking for, right is best for
you.
Dave Michels (14:02):
So there's the Chrome browser. And that's
pretty much the first thing Iinstall, and I get a new a new
device. And it's free. So butyou're not really, you know,
you're associated with Chromeenterprise, which isn't free. So
why would someone pay for Chromeenterprise when you can get
Chrome for free?
Evan Kirstel (14:20):
So Chrome
Raluca Monet (14:21):
enterprise is also free. And I think you're
referring to Chrome browsercloud management. So I'm glad
you're bringing this up. Becauseyou know, it can get a bit
confusing. So this is anenterprise offering. That gives
companies greater control overthe browser experience for their
(14:41):
employees. For example, acompany may want to limit what
extensions employees are, youknow, putting on their browser,
or they may want to limit theamount of data that can be
copied and pasted from one tabto another for DLP reasons,
because the browser is fasterAmong the enterprise desktop,
(15:02):
because most things are SASbased, this type of controls are
becoming increasingly moreimportant. So that Chrome
browser cloud management now,for Chromebooks, you can buy a
chrome enterprise license, it'san upgrade. And similarly manage
the entire endpoint computingdevice. So this goes beyond the
browser right now. You cancontrol peripherals provisioning
(15:25):
deprovisioning, four, threeenrollment, so someone doesn't
just walk out with a device. Sojust to kind of summarize this
two points, both the Chromebrowser and Chrome OS have a
cloud based web managementconsole, that gives
administrator the ability topush out policies, we have some
(15:45):
500. Plus configure policies togovern that end user experience,
what devices can and cannot dowhat users of those devices can
and cannot do, and what contentshould be displayed. And when
it's particularly useful inensuring updates and security
fixes are published and appliedto endpoints, regardless of
(16:09):
where in the world they arelocated. So with one click of a
button, all policies aredelivered to every managed
device and browser sort of,
Evan Kirstel (16:19):
magically,
Dave Michels (16:20):
is it a freemium model? Do people pay for parts
of this?
Raluca Monet (16:24):
It's not a freemium model. So the Chrome
browser cloud management, it's afree product. This is the one
that I mentioned first formanaging your browser. And then
the chrome enterprise upgradelicense is its own standalone
product. And you can buy that toactually manage the entire
endpoint computing
Evan Kirstel (16:43):
experience. Neat.
So let me ask you aboutMicrosoft Edge has chromium in
it. So does that make it part ofa chrome family you described?
Or does chrome enterprise workwith edge as well? Oh, I
Raluca Monet (16:57):
like that notion that edge is part of the chrome
family. We went from word to afamily member. And I like this a
lot better. I think what you'reasking is, can you manage the
Microsoft browser? With thechrome management interface?
Yes. Yes. The answer is no,Microsoft has not permitted that
(17:18):
level of API access. Yet. Thatsounds like my family.
Dave Michels (17:28):
So now, let's get to the meat here. Chrome
enterprise recommended, oftenknown as Si, er, your baby, as I
understand, several vendors,such as like Cisco, and
RingCentral, are in the Chromeenterprise recommended program.
What does that mean?
Raluca Monet (17:46):
Yeah, so we started this program chrome
enterprise recommended about twoyears ago. And really, we
started this program with a goalof giving our enterprise
customer customers peace of mindthat sort of the third party
software that they've purchased,that they've invested in, will
(18:07):
continue working beautifully nomatter what device they have. So
if they, as they startdiversifying their fleet or
decide to go all in with ChromeOS, and buy Chromebooks, we
wanted to make sure that theyget a beautiful experience for
their third party application.
So what we do is we work withthird party vendors, like the
ones you mentioned, they've likeCisco, and RingCentral, and
(18:30):
zoom, and many, many others. Tomake sure that one, the
experience is beautiful that thesolution performs greatly on a
Chromebook. But we also workwith these partners Well, beyond
just ensuring compatibility, weactually work with these
partners to optimize theirsolution for Chrome OS. So we
(18:50):
align our technical resources tofigure out where's the
opportunity for us to innovatetogether and to bring something
just truly unique anddifferentiated to our joint
users. We have go to marketefforts. We have roadmap
discussions, we take theirfeedback and incorporate it in
our own roadmaps. We do the samein the opposite direction. So
(19:10):
it's a pretty in depthpartnership that goes beyond
simply, you know, giving apartner a badge that sort of
approves or recommends theirsolution to the users. Got it.
So
Evan Kirstel (19:25):
who pays whom to be part of the chrome enterprise
recommended? Vendor? You know,how does the C cast provider or
other vendor become chromeenterprise recommended? So this
is not
Raluca Monet (19:42):
a paid program.
Nobody pays everybody we aretruly partners coming together
to offer a great experience toour joint users. We are
deliberately sort of limited ifyou will, you know how fast and
how many partners we bring intothe program. And we do that
because we really want tomaintain a really high bar of
(20:03):
performance. We, ourselves, weuse our own engineering team to
test the solutions, put themthrough the wringer. And, you
know, we identify any sort ofissues potentially, we then work
with a partner to address them.
This is what we consider sort ofvalue add, you know, amongst
(20:25):
other things for our partners,so no money is being exchanged
between us. It's truly apartnership for us to bring, you
know, great solutions to marketto our joint customers.
Dave Michels (20:36):
Wow, I think a lot of vendors would say good
partners pay, but Okay, that'sinteresting. I think I don't
know how many car programs thereare. But you can tell us that
but I think see Kaz is thenewest chrome enterprise
recommended program. So how manyprograms are there?
Raluca Monet (20:52):
Yeah, so there's only one chrome enterprise
recommended program. So justwanting to provide that
clarification. But within theprogram, we have different
solution areas, seek as ContactCenter is one of them one of the
more recent ones. And withinthis program, we have 12
(21:13):
solutions. So 12 partners, allamazing companies. Beyond
contact center, we have othersolution areas like
virtualization, security,productivity, communications,
kiosk and signage. Right. Sothere's quite a bit of diversity
here. I think in total, we haveabout 60 solutions targeting
(21:35):
about eight key use cases.
Dave Michels (21:38):
Wow, can a vendor be in more than one? Yep.
Raluca Monet (21:41):
Yep, you can absolutely be more than one. And
we do have partners who actuallyare, you know, in several?
Dave Michels (21:47):
And are you personally involved in all the
programs?
Raluca Monet (21:50):
I am not, you know, I'm personally leading the
partnerships in Contact Center,productivity, kiosk and signage,
communications and printing, andthen for virtualization and
security and an upcoming one inhealthcare. Those are
partnerships that are led bypeople like me, you know, who
(22:13):
are on the same team.
Dave Michels (22:14):
So you're involved in the interesting, the better
ones?
Raluca Monet (22:18):
I know, we all I'm sure we all say the same things
of our respective areas, becausewe do we do our you know, we're
very passionate about them.
Dave Michels (22:27):
And then last question on this, you just
mentioned health care, othermore car programs coming are
done that car other moreemphasis is coming or
Raluca Monet (22:35):
outside of healthcare? We don't have
anything else planned for launchin 2023. But you know, you just
never know, I guess
Evan Kirstel (22:43):
you do you never know. So, you know, Chrome is
the end of the day, just adesktop or an endpoint. So what
kinds of contact center problemscan an endpoint really solve? I
mean, security's that obviousand important one. Are there
others?
Raluca Monet (22:58):
Yeah. So our customers tell us that improving
customer experience andproviding high customer
satisfaction is their highestpriority. We hear that they want
to reduce agent response time,right? How do you get agents to
get to the right informationfaster. At the same time, they
want to minimize their contactcenter costs by reducing
(23:21):
deployment times and upgradesand agents, training costs. They
also want to reduce agentturnover. We know contact
centers are plagued with thisissue. And that, you know, the
agent jobs is difficult. And asa result, the attrition is high.
And of course, they want tosecure sensitive business and
(23:42):
customer data. So when we lookedat all of these, you know,
aspects that you know, we'veheard from customers, bringing
Chromeless into a contact centerwas a no brainer. For us,
Chromebooks, the rest of yourbusiness, because they are the
most secure endpoint in theworld. They improve your bottom
line, because you don't need a13 $1,400 device for agents, and
(24:04):
provide a technology that trulyenables agents to provide great
customer support. And, you know,we can go into that later. But
we really spent a lot of timefiguring out how do we help our
customers keep an eye onachieving the highest level of
customer satisfaction andallowing us through our
(24:25):
technology to handle thechanging standards and demands
of high security and agentproductivity. So that's what we
focused on.
Dave Michels (24:33):
I want to push back here a little bit on that
security point aren't allendpoints, you know, windows,
Chrome, Mac, etc. More or lessthe same when it comes to
security?
Raluca Monet (24:43):
Absolutely not.
You cannot buy a more inherentlysecure out of the box device and
Chrome OS and I'm really gladyou brought this up. Because
it's a particularly strong pointof Chrome OS and one of the key
features customer side whenchoosing it When people buy
Chrome OS is because of itsinherent security posture.
Whereas other platforms areimplemented in spite of their
(25:07):
security posture, no need toinstall antivirus or anything
like that. It's just hardenedright out of the box. It's a
hardened platform out of thebox. However, with other
operating systems, there's anentire stack of third party
antivirus software and librariesthat need to be installed,
updated and maintained. And it'sbecause of this very reason that
(25:30):
despite having shipped hundredsof millions of Chrome devices
over the past 11 years, therehas never been a single reported
successful ransom attack carriedout on a Chromebook ever,
Evan Kirstel (25:45):
period. Wow, that's pretty impressive. Let's
talk about, you know, beyond thebasics of the browser, which, to
us at user seems pretty simple.
I imagine there's a lot of magicbehind it. But can a browser
work as an endpoint for a verycomplex contact center where you
have real time voice, video,messaging, chat and other apps
(26:07):
that are happening in real time?
Raluca Monet (26:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
And in fact, contact centerselling into contact center,
inserting customers into contactcenter has been and continues to
be one of our most successfuluse cases, the web itself has
come a really long way,providing a beautiful experience
in the things we just mentioned,real time voice and video, chat,
and sort of beautifulperformance of these
(26:38):
applications. That used to besort of, you know, native apps
and now have transitioned to theweb. And we continue to help our
partners move towards thismodern web through progressive
web apps. But maybe what I'dlike to do is like, just take a
minute to share where our focusis when it comes to contact
(26:59):
center, because the opportunityfor us was mostly around the
improving agent experience,apart from sort of the security
piece I mentioned. And also,another piece of this is sort of
the ease of management. And, youknow, the ease of deployment. As
far as the agent productivitygoes, you know, agents are far
(27:21):
more than just folks answeringcalls, right, they are the face
of an organization. And they canmake or break customer loyalty
with one negative interaction.
So technology plays a muchbigger role here than some may
realize, from things like, youknow, giving agents access to
(27:42):
knowledge, a 200 agent, contactcenter loses about $1.5 million
annually, from agents workingacross silos to find
information. And we help withyou know, in this area, a web
based computing platform cansubstantially reduce, what do we
call the cognitive load on theagent, right agents have quite a
(28:04):
bit of information to handle inany given customer case. So an
intuitive user interface isreally important, as the agent
sits there live right with acustomer trying to navigate
through all this information. Aweb based computing platform
also provides fast and easyonboarding for new agents. So
(28:25):
you know, you want your agentsfrom the time you you know, you
sign that offer to getting themproductive, you want that time
to go fast, you want to bringthem up to speed, you want to
onboard them as quickly as youcan, and make them super
productive. Also, the rightcomputing platform should
significantly reduce any devicedowntime with OS updates. So in
(28:47):
fact, they shouldn't even knowthat such updates are being
performed, it should all justhappen. And then finally, the
computing platform should bereally well integrated with the
entire stack, you know, up anddown, we call the silicon to
cloud to ensure you know, veryseamless navigation to the
entire software stack. So whenyou put all these things
(29:07):
together, you know, for us theplatform, you know, Chrome OS is
actually just a trulydifferentiation tool for a
contact center provider.
Evan Kirstel (29:17):
Yeah, I've heard so many anecdotes through the
pandemic of Chromebooks beingjust sent unmasked to agents at
home and flipped on with aswitch. Obviously, very low cost
and simple way to deploy remoteworking for the agents. But so
are Chromebooks a viable optionfor any browser based contact
(29:38):
center? I mean, not just thecertified program?
Raluca Monet (29:41):
Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. So you know, when we
bring partners into the program,it gives that extra you no
assurance that we ourselves as acompany, Google and chrome, have
tested the solution and sort ofare putting our sort of name
behind it, but you made animportant point. earlier about
how easy is to deployChromebooks, and it is
(30:04):
incredibly simple. And Romelenrollment is as easy as typing
in your username and password.
There's literally noinstallation of bulky software
or antivirus and OS imaging,like you have to do with other
operating systems. And in fact,you can actually dropship
devices to the agent to justautomatically enroll into
(30:24):
enterprise management withoutany sort of it intervention at
all, that device doesn't have tofirst go to a tech stop, like a
physical location when somebodyhas to sit there and set it up.
It's all done remotely. So youcan actually serve any size of
organization no matter wherethey are in the world, with just
simply shipping this device andallowing the person to enroll
(30:46):
into their enterprise managementwith the product that I
mentioned earlier, theenterprise management upgrade.
Evan Kirstel (30:54):
Wow, so simple.
Even Dave, Dave Michaels coulddo it. It's impressive.
Raluca Monet (30:57):
100% And Michael's to do.
Dave Michels (31:00):
You're saying we're looking at if you could
use a Chromebook with anyChromebook enterprise
recommended contact center?
Wait, there's more, you could doit with any web based contact
center, whether they're inChrome enterprise recommended or
not, what about if they're not abrowser based contact center?
Raluca Monet (31:16):
Yeah, we have a lot of customers who they have
their customer sort ofexperience function, right
delivered not on the web,because they have some legacy
applications, etc. And we have alot of customers who, for this
exact reason, use virtualizationpartners. So as part of our
Chrome enterprise recommendedprogram, we work with
(31:38):
virtualization partners, likeCitrix and VMware and KMail, to
actually wrap that entireexperience in a virtualized
session, and provide a greatexperience to these customers
who perhaps are sort of, youknow, in the process of moving
to the cloud, or have somelegacy applications have not
moved. But you know, we're stillable to meet this customer's
(32:01):
needs, even though they're not,they may not be fully SAS based.
Evan Kirstel (32:06):
So let's talk about your sort of sales and
marketing pitch. So if a C classcustomer pays for Chrome
enterprise, instead of using thefree chrome browser, what
benefits do they get.
Raluca Monet (32:19):
So they get an operating system that can play a
significant role in not justimproving agent experience, like
I said, and security, but can bea critical differentiator for
your business. You get stressfree deployment, we talked about
that a little bit earlier, youget cloud management, very easy
(32:41):
way to get agent, user settings,policies, apps, and you get
world class security, you get toprotect your business, and
customer information. I actuallysaw recently, an IDC report that
really brought this home for me,because I have heard and talk to
customer about these things manytimes. But what I read in IDC
(33:04):
was just so fantastic toactually see the numbers. And
what IDC found is thatChromeless brings your operation
costs lower by 44%, while seeing19%, higher agent productivity,
and 33 reduction in ticketresolution time. These are
amazing stats. When we firststarted doing this, our
(33:27):
customers shared with us thatbecause all the updates are
happening in the background, andthere's no agent time that they
would save up to three hours perweek in not having that
downtime. Also, our devices bootreally fast. And they deployed
really fast about 76% Fasterthan Windows 10. And like we
said, we you know, they can bemanaged remotely. So all of this
(33:49):
amounts to a lot of really, youknow, improvements and value and
also should make any CFO veryhappy.
Dave Michels (33:57):
No, are there any features that you've added to
Chrome that are say specific tothe contact center or any of
your other tracks that matter?
But let's talk about contactcenter. Yeah,
Raluca Monet (34:07):
we're incredibly excited about the recently
announced Chrome OS deskconnector. That desk connector
allows car contact centersolutions to automatically
create a new desk for eachcustomer interaction, organizing
all the apps and windows andtools that an agent needs with
one within one the box. So whatthat does is one D clutters the
(34:31):
screen for an agent. But alsowhen the interaction ends the
desk with all its case specificwindows can be closed with one
click versus manually clickingthem one by one. And if you do
the math of having 17 tabs foreach customer interaction,
right, that adds to a lot ofclicks to open and close for
each interaction but also manyagents have two three customers
(34:54):
concurrently. So that can bereally, you know, amassed a lot
of cluster are really fast. Andyou can probably relate to this
right? On average, a user hasabout 17 tabs open at any given
time, dozens of apps running atonce, which can lead to lagging
systems and all this unnecessarycomplexity for for agents,
(35:16):
specifically, we were talkingabout contact center. So we knew
that there was an opportunity tohelp streamline the approach. So
we're thrilled to finally havethat solution with chroma as
disconnector.
Dave Michels (35:26):
So with that feature, you're looking to
increase that 44%.
Raluca Monet (35:30):
That is correct.
And 90% that productivity, wereally expect the agents to be,
you know, even more productivewith desks.
Evan Kirstel (35:38):
So who are all the vendors in the ERC cast program?
And which one is really done themost integration? Would you say?
Oh, wow,
Raluca Monet (35:48):
you're gonna test my memory here. So we have let
me see if I can kind of gothrough our contact center
partners here, we have CiscoDialpad, eight by eight edify
five, nine, Genesis, niceRingCentral, talkdesk, ujet,
Twilio and Vonage. And these aresort of the CCAFs. Providers
(36:12):
wide. In addition to thevirtualization partners that can
work in conjunction with Astiwho did
Evan Kirstel (36:17):
not have an easier. That's true, shame them.
Raluca Monet (36:24):
We're really, really proud of the partners
that we have really just amazingleader in their space, and
Gartner Magic Quadrant leadersand challengers, and we're just
really privileged to be workingwith each one of them. We really
have seen many, if not most ofthese partners leaning in to do
integrations with us from atechnical perspective. Some of
(36:45):
them have worked with us ondesk, some are continue are
working with us on upcomingones. Web hid is another one,
you know, which allows sort ofheadset controls, especially
valuable for sort of budgetsagain. So we really, I wouldn't
want to pick just one becausewe've seen our partners really
lean in into the work we'redoing and come to the table to
(37:06):
innovate with us.
Dave Michels (37:07):
Can you give us a good example of how a CTS
provider has actually improvedor changed its solution with
Chrome enterprise?
Raluca Monet (37:15):
Yeah, so the way we improve the solution is right
through through this connectorsdesk being sort of the first one
out of the gate, there'sadditional ones in the works, I
would say just as exciting. Youknow, for us, we always pay a
lot of attention to what ourcustomers are telling us and
(37:35):
where's opportunity forimprovement and we work with our
seek as partners to bring thoseto fruition. I'm really excited
to share that we've had suchamazing feedback with really
great customers. And if I couldjust perhaps pick one here.
We've deployed 60,000Chromebooks with JPMC. And
(37:56):
initially, you know, the initialdeployment was 43,000
Chromebooks. And what we heardfrom the VP of engineering, is
that the deployment of this 43cromoz was the most successful
it deployment project ever, atJPMC. And like GPMC, we have
other great customers. And wecontinue to look for ways to
(38:19):
provide value and make this aseasily as an experience as
possible and provide as muchvalue as possible. That's pretty
Evan Kirstel (38:26):
impressive. I'm just doing some research here.
Mainly Google searches. That'smy research, I came across
something called Chrome flex.
What is that?
Raluca Monet (38:37):
Yeah, I love cromoz. Flex cowboys, flex
allows organizations to convertend of life Windows and Mac
devices into full functioningChromebooks. Not only does this
save organizations a significantamount of CapEx, but it also
contributes to E wasteminimization and prolongs the
(38:58):
device lifecycle. The reality isthat many organizations that we
go into, right will have deviceslaying around that they would
still love to continue to use,although they move to cromoz. So
now we have an answer for thesedevices, you simply, you know,
put chromo ice on them. And theynow have new life, which we
(39:20):
love, because we're also as youknow, as a company, just very
big on being eco friendly. Andyou know, helping our customers
be eco friendly themselves.
Evan Kirstel (39:31):
Great. Dave has like a Windows 286 PC from the
early 90s. I wonder if we couldhelp them upgrade that. Good
idea. Google, of course, alsolaunched its own C casts.
Imagine that's a differentdivision. But did that
complicate your messaging aboutthe cause and go to Marketing,
sort of being the neutral playerin the space?
Raluca Monet (39:54):
Yeah, that's a good question. Yes, this is a
different business unit. It'spart of our cloud organizations.
And we are almost to sit, we arenot almost, but we are two
separate entities, theorganization that I serve
Chromeless is actually part ofplatforms and ecosystems. So, as
a platform, our goal here is to,you know, make sure that our
(40:18):
users have an amazingexperience, no matter what
product they use, whether theyare first party or third party
as a platform, it doesn't reallymatter to us because a platform
is only as good as theapplications that run on it. So
because of where I sit in theorganization, we view first and
(40:39):
third party as neutralapplications. And we really seek
to provide, you know, thatreally optimized experience that
the customer is looking for,regardless of the software they
are running. We've had reallygood conversations with our car
partners, when this product waslaunched. And we I think we're
(41:01):
able to gain the trust of, ofour partners that our interest
is very much aligned withtheirs. And then you know, the
rubber met the road when wecontinue to see the investments
that we're making in them andthe efforts that we're taking in
every day in and out to maketheir solution
Evan Kirstel (41:21):
beautiful on Chrome.
Dave Michels (41:25):
We got to wrap up a little bit, but I want to ask
you, you mentioned in thatChrome flex question that Evan
asked, you mentioned someenvironmental angles. We've
talked a lot about, you know,cost security manageability. Is
there much of an environmentalangle to the Chrome story,
because beyond chrome flex,
Raluca Monet (41:41):
Oh, certainly. So and this is truly part of
Google's greater mission,greater mission to be an eco
friendly company. In general, Iwill say this Chromebooks are
more eco friendly than thecompetition, consuming up to 46%
less energy, which I think isamazing, right? Like, I would
love to buy any appliance in myhouse, that promises that I
(42:02):
could, I could say 46% lessenergy. In general, for Chrome
OS, there is a significantlyreduced load on the processor,
which then means less powerconsumption, because they
consume less power, theirbattery life tends to last
longer. And I'm sure you know,being a Chromebook owner, you
just love how much battery lifeyou have everyday with your
(42:24):
device. We've also designed themto be sustainable and repairable
devices. And again, it's part ofGoogle's larger, eco friendly
mission. And we also work withour OEM partners to make sure
that this mission extends intodevices. So I'll just give you a
quick example here. HP Elite isthe world's first Chromebook
made with ocean bound plastics,which is really exciting.
Evan Kirstel (42:49):
That's really cool. I think so too.
Dave Michels (42:52):
Well, I want to thank you for taking so much
time with us today. It's areally interesting story around
and it's amazing how you know,you're touching so much the
areas that Evan and I cover. Sogreat to hear this progress.
It's really excited.
Raluca Monet (43:04):
Well, it's been a pleasure to spend time with you
both Evan and Dave today.
Evan Kirstel (43:08):
Thank you. Well, it's great chatting with Raluca.
It's so funny, you know, peopleare so more interesting than AI.
It's really nice to talk to ahuman being at Google. And
Dave Michels (43:20):
I was thinking, because of our earlier
conversation, I was thinkingabout replacing you with chat
GBT as a co host,
Evan Kirstel (43:26):
I would welcome that opportunity. It'll be
Evanescence service, you canjust for one penny a call. You
can just have it have it. Pingmy API.
Dave Michels (43:35):
What I find most interesting about what Raluca
had said the thought that I hadwhile she was talking is this is
so obvious. Why are people stillspending so much money on high
end desktops just to run whatthey could run in a browser. I
just don't get it.
Evan Kirstel (43:49):
Well, I think the world is coming around to your
point of view. So look forwardto more discussions along these
lines with Google and others.
All right,
Dave Michels (43:58):
till next episode.
You may get into conversationwith them I gotta get out of the
phone. Don't don't read yourphone. No, man. No, it's me.
Welcome to talking to us today we'll be talking
about room lookup on a of GoogleChrome. But before that, Evan
Happy New Year,
Evan Kirstel (00:19):
Happy New Year, happy holidays, we're off to a
brand new year
Dave Michels (00:24):
now that 2022 is behind it. This is the problem.
Everyone does their their yearend post at the year end. And
the year is not over yet. So nowthat we're in January, what was
to you? The biggest story of2022. For me,
Evan Kirstel (00:39):
it was generative AI, aka Dolly, chat, GPT. and
the like. I think the revolutionis going to be so interesting,
disruptive, whatever you want tocall it, that we have no idea
what to head.
Dave Michels (00:57):
Well, you know, most people will say that a lot
of this AI isn't all that usefuland everything. But I saw you
put a good use to it. I saw youdoing a poem on social networks.
Evan Kirstel (01:06):
I've been doing poems I've just released 18
blogs at once in four differentlanguages. My SEO is through the
roof. But in all seriousness,the quality of the prose of the
writing, the humor, theintelligence, the punctuation,
whatever metric you want to gointo is extraordinary. And I
(01:29):
don't think people realize theimplication of all this. I'm
just so astounded by what'shappening with generative AI, as
they call it.
Dave Michels (01:37):
I don't know what to think. So I guess I'll have
to ask the chat GPT for aconclusion on all this.
Evan Kirstel (01:43):
Well, I've just finished a blog on this as we've
been talking, and in about threeseconds that will be published
in 30 seconds. And I don't knowyou make a living out of ideas
and writing. Do you see this asan opportunity as a threat as
something else altogether?
Dave Michels (02:02):
Well, I think it's very interesting. And there's
certainly no denying that it's abreakthrough. And, you know,
they, they often talk about howlong it takes to get a million
users or some like that. And,and I think Chad GPT did it in
less than a week. And so it'svery impressive technology,
there's no question about it.
And, and people are realizing,you know, the next generation of
AI is actually coming because,you know, like Google's have
this next generation of AI thatone of their employees thought
(02:23):
was sentient and got fired forit. But they haven't made it
public. They haven't reallyshown it to people. And so this
was this was an eye openingexperience. You know, I always
see the glass half empty, as youoften point out. And I'm not
that impressed because he writeswell, but it makes up everything
and just kind of, I had to do abiography on somebody that I was
interested in. And they saidthat this person wrote this
(02:45):
book, and it said, Well, I wantto read that book. You know, and
I'm looking for this book,right? It just made that up. He
didn't write this book, youknow, and the book had a great
title and
Evan Kirstel (02:55):
read my writing.
It's completely made up. So Imean,
Dave Michels (02:58):
that's the response is that, you know,
there wasn't there was anarticle about Welcome to the
future. It's all BS. But so asthe President's you know, so, so
yeah, it's a mirror of our ownsociety. But I'm not as excited
as Intel because a little moretruthful, but whatever.
Evan Kirstel (03:14):
Well, I mean, you're talking about writing,
which is fair enough, but youknow, there's also imaging
there's also video creation,there's also music, and any form
of coffee.
Dave Michels (03:24):
And the best part of it the best part of chat GPT
is it works on a Chromebook.
Evan Kirstel (03:30):
Okay, that's the best part. While speaking of
Chromebook, we have a guest thatknows a thing or two about
Chromebooks. So why don't wechat with her?
god (03:38):
Let's get to talking. It is a semi monthly podcast with
interviews of the top movers andshakers and enterprise
communications andcollaboration. Your host Dave
Michaels and Evan Kirkstall,both of which offer
extraordinary services includingresearch, analysis and social
media marketing. You can findthem on Twitter, LinkedIn, or at
(04:00):
talking points.com. That'spoints with the Z and Evan
kersal.com. That's que ir S T EL.
Dave Michels (04:09):
Today we have with us we're Luca mnay. The Global
Partnerships lead for contactcenter the chromo esteem,
welcome Raluca.
Raluca Monet (04:16):
Thank you. Great to be here.
Dave Michels (04:18):
So we want to start off quick question about
your name. And we're Luca, as Irecall, is a Romanian name but
mo de is associated with France.
So what kind of name is
Raluca Monet (04:30):
I get this question a lot, actually. So a
lot of people also ask me, Hey,are you related to the painter
and I always say, Hey, if youever watched me hold a brush or
try and paint you immediatelyknow that I am not related to
Monet, but you're right or Lucais a Romanian name. I was born
and raised in Romania. It's avery common name. They're
Evan Kirstel (04:52):
very cool. And what kind of name is Dave
Michaels? Anyway? So you've beenat Google for seven years. That
is that eternity in tech time.
How is Google changed over thatseven years? You know, working
from home, for example, do youwork from home at office? What's
that journey been? Like? Yeah,
Raluca Monet (05:11):
gosh, yeah, it's already been seven years. And
just to be completely honest, itdoesn't feel like that at all.
It really went fast.
Dave Michels (05:19):
It feels like 20 years or what?
Raluca Monet (05:22):
No, it just feels like I just joined frankly, and
you know, a lot of that has todo with just Google continue to
feel very startup being on theinside and very fast pace. But
in some ways, it's really thesame company that I joined. And
truly, that has a lot to do withthe company's effort to preserve
the awesome culture that sort ofGoogle is known for. And one of
(05:45):
the big reasons that I actuallyjoined the company initially. So
in some ways, it's the samecompany. And I'm grateful for
that. And in some ways, it'scontinues to change and feel
differently in some pockets. Andagain, it feels very startup
still. And then Evan, I thinkyou also asked me about, you
(06:05):
know, working from home or inthe office, just like a lot of
tech companies sort of willembrace this hybrid model. Some
folks have decided to justcontinue to work from home
permanently. And they haveapplied for that. And some
people continue to do a hybridmodel of three plus two days.
And it's working great. Iactually traveled quite a bit. I
(06:28):
spend a lot of my time withpartners or customers. So you
know, you'd find me out in thefield a lot more time that
probably in almost any office.
Dave Michels (06:39):
Well, I want to get to your chrome partnership
role. But before that, I want toI see that you spent 10 years at
Unisys, what did you do atUnisys. And did that prepare you
at all for your current role atGoogle?
Raluca Monet (06:51):
It most definitely did Unisys the large IT
integrator, right. So just as anorganization led a lot of IT
transformation projects for thegovernment essentially, is the
business unit I was in. And it'sinteresting how at some point
during this journey at Unisys,we started seeing sort of Google
(07:16):
the collaboration suite,becoming part of this IT
transformation projectscontract. So really interesting
for me, I was part of threelarge deployments for what was
back then known as you know, theorganization going Google. So
essentially deploying workspacefor work at this three
(07:37):
government agencies, doing thechange management for it, and
sort of leading this big, youknow, transformational projects,
that really did help me thenmake my next move, which is,
hey, I was just so familiar withGoogle that it was sort of a
very natural step to then, youknow, come to Google and
(07:58):
continue on this journey in theenterprise world.
Evan Kirstel (08:01):
Fantastic. Let me ask you a bit about the history
of Chrome, because I don'tactually recall when Chrome came
about, you can give us a littlebackstory there. I know. You
know, multiple browsers havepretty deep roots. Even David
Michael still uses Netscape. Butwhere did Google make Chrome and
Web?
Raluca Monet (08:22):
Yeah, so Chrome was developed by Google and
released in 2008, is a crossplatform web browser. Chrome was
initially a development projectcodename some people may not
know that, and the CO thinking,you know, from being sort of
this association between Chromewith fast cars and speed. And
(08:43):
what's interesting is thatGoogle kept the development
project name as the finalrelease name, the CEO at the
time, Eric Schmidt, initiallyopposed the development of
another browser, right. Hethought at the time, Google was
too small to take on somethingsignificant of an effort. And he
(09:03):
did not want to sort of competewith with the browsers at the
time. But what's interesting tome is that after the co
founders, Sergey and Larry hiredseveral Mozilla Firefox
developers, and the firstdemonstration of Chrome Schmidt
said that it was so good that itessentially forced me to change
(09:23):
my mind. You know, that's whathe said. So that's the story of
the browser. And then Chrome OScame in 2009. The browser is the
main component of Chrome OS. Itserves as the platform for web
application. And the goal forChrome OS was to and continues
to be to democratize computing,and specifically cloud computing
(09:45):
to users around
Dave Michels (09:46):
the globe. I vividly remember those browser
wars the early when Chrome firstcame out, it was it was ie
versus Chrome, and they wereincompatible in a lot of ways. I
guess. Chrome won the warbecause Microsoft are adopting
chromium in Edge is the warover?
Raluca Monet (10:05):
Well, so first of all, most of Chrome's source
code comes from Google's freeand open source software project
chromium, but Chromium isproprietary. It continues to be
free and it will remain free.
Buddy's proprietary. Edge wasbuilt initially with Microsoft's
own proprietary browser engine.
Around 2018, I would say late2018, it was announced that edge
(10:29):
will be completely rebuilt as achromium based browser. I
personally not a big fan of thisterm of war, because it implies
hostility. And really, eachcompany was trying to build what
they perceived as the best toolfor browsing and accessing
information on the web. So yes,it's true. Microsoft ultimately
(10:51):
adopted the same chrome basis
Evan Kirstel (10:54):
Chrome. Awesome.
Well, Dave and I both haveChromebooks. I have a Samsung
beautiful orange. cool device. Iknow Dave has like an Acer maybe
HP with 4g? To tell us whichvendors the best who's what's
your favorite?
Raluca Monet (11:09):
So I know these devices. Well, I have, then I
still have the Samsung that Ithink that's such a beautiful, I
believe that's the Galaxy right?
Coral, beautiful color. Justsuch a sexy eyecatcher. But I
also have, you know, an Acer andAsus and HP. They're all
beautiful devices. And look,it's hard to say which vendor is
the best? And I couldn't answerbecause we do work with all the
(11:31):
major OEMs to offer a broadrange of form factors. So you
will see beautiful Chromebooksfrom Acer and Asus and Dell, HP,
Lenovo, Samsung, righteverybody. And they come into
just about any form factor youcould imagine. From clamshells
to you know, detachablestouchscreens, not touchscreen.
(11:54):
So just about anything you'dwant to have, you can find a
bail available from the majorOEMs. But glad to hear that you
use Chromebooks and that youlove them.
Dave Michels (12:07):
It's nice, I got to like Evan mentioned and I,
you know, go between themdepending which form factor I
need. But one thing that reallyfrustrates me with the Android
ecosystem is that eachmanufacturer completely
customizes it and the apps aredifferent and the UI is
different. Chrome OS doesn'thave that it's much more
consistent was was thatdeliberate design decision?
Yeah, it
Raluca Monet (12:26):
was. And I do have to defend my Android friends
here. Because surely differentOEMs. And manufacturers all
implement their own version ofAndroid, which is actually a
good thing for differentiationpurposes. With Chrome OS, as you
correctly stated, while it'sbased on open source code, the
OS image comes directly fromGoogle, regardless of who builds
(12:50):
the device. This means thatthere's universal consistency.
So issuing things like bug fixesand security patches or pushing
out content is dramaticallysimplified. And this consistency
is key. And this is what I thinkyou're referring to.
Evan Kirstel (13:07):
Let me clarify something for me if you want. So
there's Chrome browser,obviously. There's Chrome,
mobile, there's Chromebooks.
Like my Samsung, there'ssomething called Chrome desk
even I'm not sure what that is.
So it's Chroma single thing? Areall of these different threads.
Raluca Monet (13:24):
They're not different. They're all related,
right? So Chrome browser is thefoundation is how everything
started. And from there, we'veexpanded into Chrome OS and
Chrome devices, right? All ofthese are connected and related.
And you can use them together,you can use them separately,
depending on sort of what is theuse case that you're looking
(13:46):
for, you know, you canabsolutely go into the full
stack, and to end or you canjust decide that, hey, I just
want to use the browser, youknow, whatever your sort of
whatever the experience you'relooking for, right is best for
you.
Dave Michels (14:02):
So there's the Chrome browser. And that's
pretty much the first thing Iinstall, and I get a new a new
device. And it's free. So butyou're not really, you know,
you're associated with Chromeenterprise, which isn't free. So
why would someone pay for Chromeenterprise when you can get
Chrome for free?
Evan Kirstel (14:20):
So Chrome
Raluca Monet (14:21):
enterprise is also free. And I think you're
referring to Chrome browsercloud management. So I'm glad
you're bringing this up. Becauseyou know, it can get a bit
confusing. So this is anenterprise offering. That gives
companies greater control overthe browser experience for their
(14:41):
employees. For example, acompany may want to limit what
extensions employees are, youknow, putting on their browser,
or they may want to limit theamount of data that can be
copied and pasted from one tabto another for DLP reasons,
because the browser is fasterAmong the enterprise desktop,
(15:02):
because most things are SASbased, this type of controls are
becoming increasingly moreimportant. So that Chrome
browser cloud management now,for Chromebooks, you can buy a
chrome enterprise license, it'san upgrade. And similarly manage
the entire endpoint computingdevice. So this goes beyond the
browser right now. You cancontrol peripherals provisioning
(15:25):
deprovisioning, four, threeenrollment, so someone doesn't
just walk out with a device. Sojust to kind of summarize this
two points, both the Chromebrowser and Chrome OS have a
cloud based web managementconsole, that gives
administrator the ability topush out policies, we have some
(15:45):
500. Plus configure policies togovern that end user experience,
what devices can and cannot dowhat users of those devices can
and cannot do, and what contentshould be displayed. And when
it's particularly useful inensuring updates and security
fixes are published and appliedto endpoints, regardless of
(16:09):
where in the world they arelocated. So with one click of a
button, all policies aredelivered to every managed
device and browser sort of,
Evan Kirstel (16:19):
magically,
Dave Michels (16:20):
is it a freemium model? Do people pay for parts
of this?
Raluca Monet (16:24):
It's not a freemium model. So the Chrome
browser cloud management, it's afree product. This is the one
that I mentioned first formanaging your browser. And then
the chrome enterprise upgradelicense is its own standalone
product. And you can buy that toactually manage the entire
endpoint computing
Evan Kirstel (16:43):
experience. Neat.
So let me ask you aboutMicrosoft Edge has chromium in
it. So does that make it part ofa chrome family you described?
Or does chrome enterprise workwith edge as well? Oh, I
Raluca Monet (16:57):
like that notion that edge is part of the chrome
family. We went from word to afamily member. And I like this a
lot better. I think what you'reasking is, can you manage the
Microsoft browser? With thechrome management interface?
Yes. Yes. The answer is no,Microsoft has not permitted that
(17:18):
level of API access. Yet. Thatsounds like my family.
Dave Michels (17:28):
So now, let's get to the meat here. Chrome
enterprise recommended, oftenknown as Si, er, your baby, as I
understand, several vendors,such as like Cisco, and
RingCentral, are in the Chromeenterprise recommended program.
What does that mean?
Raluca Monet (17:46):
Yeah, so we started this program chrome
enterprise recommended about twoyears ago. And really, we
started this program with a goalof giving our enterprise
customer customers peace of mindthat sort of the third party
software that they've purchased,that they've invested in, will
(18:07):
continue working beautifully nomatter what device they have. So
if they, as they startdiversifying their fleet or
decide to go all in with ChromeOS, and buy Chromebooks, we
wanted to make sure that theyget a beautiful experience for
their third party application.
So what we do is we work withthird party vendors, like the
ones you mentioned, they've likeCisco, and RingCentral, and
(18:30):
zoom, and many, many others. Tomake sure that one, the
experience is beautiful that thesolution performs greatly on a
Chromebook. But we also workwith these partners Well, beyond
just ensuring compatibility, weactually work with these
partners to optimize theirsolution for Chrome OS. So we
(18:50):
align our technical resources tofigure out where's the
opportunity for us to innovatetogether and to bring something
just truly unique anddifferentiated to our joint
users. We have go to marketefforts. We have roadmap
discussions, we take theirfeedback and incorporate it in
our own roadmaps. We do the samein the opposite direction. So
(19:10):
it's a pretty in depthpartnership that goes beyond
simply, you know, giving apartner a badge that sort of
approves or recommends theirsolution to the users. Got it.
So
Evan Kirstel (19:25):
who pays whom to be part of the chrome enterprise
recommended? Vendor? You know,how does the C cast provider or
other vendor become chromeenterprise recommended? So this
is not
Raluca Monet (19:42):
a paid program.
Nobody pays everybody we aretruly partners coming together
to offer a great experience toour joint users. We are
deliberately sort of limited ifyou will, you know how fast and
how many partners we bring intothe program. And we do that
because we really want tomaintain a really high bar of
(20:03):
performance. We, ourselves, weuse our own engineering team to
test the solutions, put themthrough the wringer. And, you
know, we identify any sort ofissues potentially, we then work
with a partner to address them.
This is what we consider sort ofvalue add, you know, amongst
(20:25):
other things for our partners,so no money is being exchanged
between us. It's truly apartnership for us to bring, you
know, great solutions to marketto our joint customers.
Dave Michels (20:36):
Wow, I think a lot of vendors would say good
partners pay, but Okay, that'sinteresting. I think I don't
know how many car programs thereare. But you can tell us that
but I think see Kaz is thenewest chrome enterprise
recommended program. So how manyprograms are there?
Raluca Monet (20:52):
Yeah, so there's only one chrome enterprise
recommended program. So justwanting to provide that
clarification. But within theprogram, we have different
solution areas, seek as ContactCenter is one of them one of the
more recent ones. And withinthis program, we have 12
(21:13):
solutions. So 12 partners, allamazing companies. Beyond
contact center, we have othersolution areas like
virtualization, security,productivity, communications,
kiosk and signage. Right. Sothere's quite a bit of diversity
here. I think in total, we haveabout 60 solutions targeting
(21:35):
about eight key use cases.
Dave Michels (21:38):
Wow, can a vendor be in more than one? Yep.
Raluca Monet (21:41):
Yep, you can absolutely be more than one. And
we do have partners who actuallyare, you know, in several?
Dave Michels (21:47):
And are you personally involved in all the
programs?
Raluca Monet (21:50):
I am not, you know, I'm personally leading the
partnerships in Contact Center,productivity, kiosk and signage,
communications and printing, andthen for virtualization and
security and an upcoming one inhealthcare. Those are
partnerships that are led bypeople like me, you know, who
(22:13):
are on the same team.
Dave Michels (22:14):
So you're involved in the interesting, the better
ones?
Raluca Monet (22:18):
I know, we all I'm sure we all say the same things
of our respective areas, becausewe do we do our you know, we're
very passionate about them.
Dave Michels (22:27):
And then last question on this, you just
mentioned health care, othermore car programs coming are
done that car other moreemphasis is coming or
Raluca Monet (22:35):
outside of healthcare? We don't have
anything else planned for launchin 2023. But you know, you just
never know, I guess
Evan Kirstel (22:43):
you do you never know. So, you know, Chrome is
the end of the day, just adesktop or an endpoint. So what
kinds of contact center problemscan an endpoint really solve? I
mean, security's that obviousand important one. Are there
others?
Raluca Monet (22:58):
Yeah. So our customers tell us that improving
customer experience andproviding high customer
satisfaction is their highestpriority. We hear that they want
to reduce agent response time,right? How do you get agents to
get to the right informationfaster. At the same time, they
want to minimize their contactcenter costs by reducing
(23:21):
deployment times and upgradesand agents, training costs. They
also want to reduce agentturnover. We know contact
centers are plagued with thisissue. And that, you know, the
agent jobs is difficult. And asa result, the attrition is high.
And of course, they want tosecure sensitive business and
(23:42):
customer data. So when we lookedat all of these, you know,
aspects that you know, we'veheard from customers, bringing
Chromeless into a contact centerwas a no brainer. For us,
Chromebooks, the rest of yourbusiness, because they are the
most secure endpoint in theworld. They improve your bottom
line, because you don't need a13 $1,400 device for agents, and
(24:04):
provide a technology that trulyenables agents to provide great
customer support. And, you know,we can go into that later. But
we really spent a lot of timefiguring out how do we help our
customers keep an eye onachieving the highest level of
customer satisfaction andallowing us through our
(24:25):
technology to handle thechanging standards and demands
of high security and agentproductivity. So that's what we
focused on.
Dave Michels (24:33):
I want to push back here a little bit on that
security point aren't allendpoints, you know, windows,
Chrome, Mac, etc. More or lessthe same when it comes to
security?
Raluca Monet (24:43):
Absolutely not.
You cannot buy a more inherentlysecure out of the box device and
Chrome OS and I'm really gladyou brought this up. Because
it's a particularly strong pointof Chrome OS and one of the key
features customer side whenchoosing it When people buy
Chrome OS is because of itsinherent security posture.
Whereas other platforms areimplemented in spite of their
(25:07):
security posture, no need toinstall antivirus or anything
like that. It's just hardenedright out of the box. It's a
hardened platform out of thebox. However, with other
operating systems, there's anentire stack of third party
antivirus software and librariesthat need to be installed,
updated and maintained. And it'sbecause of this very reason that
(25:30):
despite having shipped hundredsof millions of Chrome devices
over the past 11 years, therehas never been a single reported
successful ransom attack carriedout on a Chromebook ever,
Evan Kirstel (25:45):
period. Wow, that's pretty impressive. Let's
talk about, you know, beyond thebasics of the browser, which, to
us at user seems pretty simple.
I imagine there's a lot of magicbehind it. But can a browser
work as an endpoint for a verycomplex contact center where you
have real time voice, video,messaging, chat and other apps
(26:07):
that are happening in real time?
Raluca Monet (26:12):
Yeah, absolutely.
And in fact, contact centerselling into contact center,
inserting customers into contactcenter has been and continues to
be one of our most successfuluse cases, the web itself has
come a really long way,providing a beautiful experience
in the things we just mentioned,real time voice and video, chat,
and sort of beautifulperformance of these
(26:38):
applications. That used to besort of, you know, native apps
and now have transitioned to theweb. And we continue to help our
partners move towards thismodern web through progressive
web apps. But maybe what I'dlike to do is like, just take a
minute to share where our focusis when it comes to contact
(26:59):
center, because the opportunityfor us was mostly around the
improving agent experience,apart from sort of the security
piece I mentioned. And also,another piece of this is sort of
the ease of management. And, youknow, the ease of deployment. As
far as the agent productivitygoes, you know, agents are far
(27:21):
more than just folks answeringcalls, right, they are the face
of an organization. And they canmake or break customer loyalty
with one negative interaction.
So technology plays a muchbigger role here than some may
realize, from things like, youknow, giving agents access to
(27:42):
knowledge, a 200 agent, contactcenter loses about $1.5 million
annually, from agents workingacross silos to find
information. And we help withyou know, in this area, a web
based computing platform cansubstantially reduce, what do we
call the cognitive load on theagent, right agents have quite a
(28:04):
bit of information to handle inany given customer case. So an
intuitive user interface isreally important, as the agent
sits there live right with acustomer trying to navigate
through all this information. Aweb based computing platform
also provides fast and easyonboarding for new agents. So
(28:25):
you know, you want your agentsfrom the time you you know, you
sign that offer to getting themproductive, you want that time
to go fast, you want to bringthem up to speed, you want to
onboard them as quickly as youcan, and make them super
productive. Also, the rightcomputing platform should
significantly reduce any devicedowntime with OS updates. So in
(28:47):
fact, they shouldn't even knowthat such updates are being
performed, it should all justhappen. And then finally, the
computing platform should bereally well integrated with the
entire stack, you know, up anddown, we call the silicon to
cloud to ensure you know, veryseamless navigation to the
entire software stack. So whenyou put all these things
(29:07):
together, you know, for us theplatform, you know, Chrome OS is
actually just a trulydifferentiation tool for a
contact center provider.
Evan Kirstel (29:17):
Yeah, I've heard so many anecdotes through the
pandemic of Chromebooks beingjust sent unmasked to agents at
home and flipped on with aswitch. Obviously, very low cost
and simple way to deploy remoteworking for the agents. But so
are Chromebooks a viable optionfor any browser based contact
(29:38):
center? I mean, not just thecertified program?
Raluca Monet (29:41):
Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. So you know, when we
bring partners into the program,it gives that extra you no
assurance that we ourselves as acompany, Google and chrome, have
tested the solution and sort ofare putting our sort of name
behind it, but you made animportant point. earlier about
how easy is to deployChromebooks, and it is
(30:04):
incredibly simple. And Romelenrollment is as easy as typing
in your username and password.
There's literally noinstallation of bulky software
or antivirus and OS imaging,like you have to do with other
operating systems. And in fact,you can actually dropship
devices to the agent to justautomatically enroll into
(30:24):
enterprise management withoutany sort of it intervention at
all, that device doesn't have tofirst go to a tech stop, like a
physical location when somebodyhas to sit there and set it up.
It's all done remotely. So youcan actually serve any size of
organization no matter wherethey are in the world, with just
simply shipping this device andallowing the person to enroll
(30:46):
into their enterprise managementwith the product that I
mentioned earlier, theenterprise management upgrade.
Evan Kirstel (30:54):
Wow, so simple.
Even Dave, Dave Michaels coulddo it. It's impressive.
Raluca Monet (30:57):
100% And Michael's to do.
Dave Michels (31:00):
You're saying we're looking at if you could
use a Chromebook with anyChromebook enterprise
recommended contact center?
Wait, there's more, you could doit with any web based contact
center, whether they're inChrome enterprise recommended or
not, what about if they're not abrowser based contact center?
Raluca Monet (31:16):
Yeah, we have a lot of customers who they have
their customer sort ofexperience function, right
delivered not on the web,because they have some legacy
applications, etc. And we have alot of customers who, for this
exact reason, use virtualizationpartners. So as part of our
Chrome enterprise recommendedprogram, we work with
(31:38):
virtualization partners, likeCitrix and VMware and KMail, to
actually wrap that entireexperience in a virtualized
session, and provide a greatexperience to these customers
who perhaps are sort of, youknow, in the process of moving
to the cloud, or have somelegacy applications have not
moved. But you know, we're stillable to meet this customer's
(32:01):
needs, even though they're not,they may not be fully SAS based.
Evan Kirstel (32:06):
So let's talk about your sort of sales and
marketing pitch. So if a C classcustomer pays for Chrome
enterprise, instead of using thefree chrome browser, what
benefits do they get.
Raluca Monet (32:19):
So they get an operating system that can play a
significant role in not justimproving agent experience, like
I said, and security, but can bea critical differentiator for
your business. You get stressfree deployment, we talked about
that a little bit earlier, youget cloud management, very easy
(32:41):
way to get agent, user settings,policies, apps, and you get
world class security, you get toprotect your business, and
customer information. I actuallysaw recently, an IDC report that
really brought this home for me,because I have heard and talk to
customer about these things manytimes. But what I read in IDC
(33:04):
was just so fantastic toactually see the numbers. And
what IDC found is thatChromeless brings your operation
costs lower by 44%, while seeing19%, higher agent productivity,
and 33 reduction in ticketresolution time. These are
amazing stats. When we firststarted doing this, our
(33:27):
customers shared with us thatbecause all the updates are
happening in the background, andthere's no agent time that they
would save up to three hours perweek in not having that
downtime. Also, our devices bootreally fast. And they deployed
really fast about 76% Fasterthan Windows 10. And like we
said, we you know, they can bemanaged remotely. So all of this
(33:49):
amounts to a lot of really, youknow, improvements and value and
also should make any CFO veryhappy.
Dave Michels (33:57):
No, are there any features that you've added to
Chrome that are say specific tothe contact center or any of
your other tracks that matter?
But let's talk about contactcenter. Yeah,
Raluca Monet (34:07):
we're incredibly excited about the recently
announced Chrome OS deskconnector. That desk connector
allows car contact centersolutions to automatically
create a new desk for eachcustomer interaction, organizing
all the apps and windows andtools that an agent needs with
one within one the box. So whatthat does is one D clutters the
(34:31):
screen for an agent. But alsowhen the interaction ends the
desk with all its case specificwindows can be closed with one
click versus manually clickingthem one by one. And if you do
the math of having 17 tabs foreach customer interaction,
right, that adds to a lot ofclicks to open and close for
each interaction but also manyagents have two three customers
(34:54):
concurrently. So that can bereally, you know, amassed a lot
of cluster are really fast. Andyou can probably relate to this
right? On average, a user hasabout 17 tabs open at any given
time, dozens of apps running atonce, which can lead to lagging
systems and all this unnecessarycomplexity for for agents,
(35:16):
specifically, we were talkingabout contact center. So we knew
that there was an opportunity tohelp streamline the approach. So
we're thrilled to finally havethat solution with chroma as
disconnector.
Dave Michels (35:26):
So with that feature, you're looking to
increase that 44%.
Raluca Monet (35:30):
That is correct.
And 90% that productivity, wereally expect the agents to be,
you know, even more productivewith desks.
Evan Kirstel (35:38):
So who are all the vendors in the ERC cast program?
And which one is really done themost integration? Would you say?
Oh, wow,
Raluca Monet (35:48):
you're gonna test my memory here. So we have let
me see if I can kind of gothrough our contact center
partners here, we have CiscoDialpad, eight by eight edify
five, nine, Genesis, niceRingCentral, talkdesk, ujet,
Twilio and Vonage. And these aresort of the CCAFs. Providers
(36:12):
wide. In addition to thevirtualization partners that can
work in conjunction with Astiwho did
Evan Kirstel (36:17):
not have an easier. That's true, shame them.
Raluca Monet (36:24):
We're really, really proud of the partners
that we have really just amazingleader in their space, and
Gartner Magic Quadrant leadersand challengers, and we're just
really privileged to be workingwith each one of them. We really
have seen many, if not most ofthese partners leaning in to do
integrations with us from atechnical perspective. Some of
(36:45):
them have worked with us ondesk, some are continue are
working with us on upcomingones. Web hid is another one,
you know, which allows sort ofheadset controls, especially
valuable for sort of budgetsagain. So we really, I wouldn't
want to pick just one becausewe've seen our partners really
lean in into the work we'redoing and come to the table to
(37:06):
innovate with us.
Dave Michels (37:07):
Can you give us a good example of how a CTS
provider has actually improvedor changed its solution with
Chrome enterprise?
Raluca Monet (37:15):
Yeah, so the way we improve the solution is right
through through this connectorsdesk being sort of the first one
out of the gate, there'sadditional ones in the works, I
would say just as exciting. Youknow, for us, we always pay a
lot of attention to what ourcustomers are telling us and
(37:35):
where's opportunity forimprovement and we work with our
seek as partners to bring thoseto fruition. I'm really excited
to share that we've had suchamazing feedback with really
great customers. And if I couldjust perhaps pick one here.
We've deployed 60,000Chromebooks with JPMC. And
(37:56):
initially, you know, the initialdeployment was 43,000
Chromebooks. And what we heardfrom the VP of engineering, is
that the deployment of this 43cromoz was the most successful
it deployment project ever, atJPMC. And like GPMC, we have
other great customers. And wecontinue to look for ways to
(38:19):
provide value and make this aseasily as an experience as
possible and provide as muchvalue as possible. That's pretty
Evan Kirstel (38:26):
impressive. I'm just doing some research here.
Mainly Google searches. That'smy research, I came across
something called Chrome flex.
What is that?
Raluca Monet (38:37):
Yeah, I love cromoz. Flex cowboys, flex
allows organizations to convertend of life Windows and Mac
devices into full functioningChromebooks. Not only does this
save organizations a significantamount of CapEx, but it also
contributes to E wasteminimization and prolongs the
(38:58):
device lifecycle. The reality isthat many organizations that we
go into, right will have deviceslaying around that they would
still love to continue to use,although they move to cromoz. So
now we have an answer for thesedevices, you simply, you know,
put chromo ice on them. And theynow have new life, which we
(39:20):
love, because we're also as youknow, as a company, just very
big on being eco friendly. Andyou know, helping our customers
be eco friendly themselves.
Evan Kirstel (39:31):
Great. Dave has like a Windows 286 PC from the
early 90s. I wonder if we couldhelp them upgrade that. Good
idea. Google, of course, alsolaunched its own C casts.
Imagine that's a differentdivision. But did that
complicate your messaging aboutthe cause and go to Marketing,
sort of being the neutral playerin the space?
Raluca Monet (39:54):
Yeah, that's a good question. Yes, this is a
different business unit. It'spart of our cloud organizations.
And we are almost to sit, we arenot almost, but we are two
separate entities, theorganization that I serve
Chromeless is actually part ofplatforms and ecosystems. So, as
a platform, our goal here is to,you know, make sure that our
(40:18):
users have an amazingexperience, no matter what
product they use, whether theyare first party or third party
as a platform, it doesn't reallymatter to us because a platform
is only as good as theapplications that run on it. So
because of where I sit in theorganization, we view first and
(40:39):
third party as neutralapplications. And we really seek
to provide, you know, thatreally optimized experience that
the customer is looking for,regardless of the software they
are running. We've had reallygood conversations with our car
partners, when this product waslaunched. And we I think we're
(41:01):
able to gain the trust of, ofour partners that our interest
is very much aligned withtheirs. And then you know, the
rubber met the road when wecontinue to see the investments
that we're making in them andthe efforts that we're taking in
every day in and out to maketheir solution
Evan Kirstel (41:21):
beautiful on Chrome.
Dave Michels (41:25):
We got to wrap up a little bit, but I want to ask
you, you mentioned in thatChrome flex question that Evan
asked, you mentioned someenvironmental angles. We've
talked a lot about, you know,cost security manageability. Is
there much of an environmentalangle to the Chrome story,
because beyond chrome flex,
Raluca Monet (41:41):
Oh, certainly. So and this is truly part of
Google's greater mission,greater mission to be an eco
friendly company. In general, Iwill say this Chromebooks are
more eco friendly than thecompetition, consuming up to 46%
less energy, which I think isamazing, right? Like, I would
love to buy any appliance in myhouse, that promises that I
(42:02):
could, I could say 46% lessenergy. In general, for Chrome
OS, there is a significantlyreduced load on the processor,
which then means less powerconsumption, because they
consume less power, theirbattery life tends to last
longer. And I'm sure you know,being a Chromebook owner, you
just love how much battery lifeyou have everyday with your
(42:24):
device. We've also designed themto be sustainable and repairable
devices. And again, it's part ofGoogle's larger, eco friendly
mission. And we also work withour OEM partners to make sure
that this mission extends intodevices. So I'll just give you a
quick example here. HP Elite isthe world's first Chromebook
made with ocean bound plastics,which is really exciting.
Evan Kirstel (42:49):
That's really cool. I think so too.
Dave Michels (42:52):
Well, I want to thank you for taking so much
time with us today. It's areally interesting story around
and it's amazing how you know,you're touching so much the
areas that Evan and I cover. Sogreat to hear this progress.
It's really excited.
Raluca Monet (43:04):
Well, it's been a pleasure to spend time with you
both Evan and Dave today.
Evan Kirstel (43:08):
Thank you. Well, it's great chatting with Raluca.
It's so funny, you know, peopleare so more interesting than AI.
It's really nice to talk to ahuman being at Google. And
Dave Michels (43:20):
I was thinking, because of our earlier
conversation, I was thinkingabout replacing you with chat
GBT as a co host,
Evan Kirstel (43:26):
I would welcome that opportunity. It'll be
Evanescence service, you canjust for one penny a call. You
can just have it have it. Pingmy API.
Dave Michels (43:35):
What I find most interesting about what Raluca
had said the thought that I hadwhile she was talking is this is
so obvious. Why are people stillspending so much money on high
end desktops just to run whatthey could run in a browser. I
just don't get it.
Evan Kirstel (43:49):
Well, I think the world is coming around to your
point of view. So look forwardto more discussions along these
lines with Google and others.
All right,
Dave Michels (43:58):
till next episode.
You may get into conversationwith them I gotta get out of the
phone. Don't don't read yourphone. No, man. No, it's me.
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