By Tim Weber Business editor, BBC News website
Spanish banking giant BBVA is switching its 110,000 staff to use Google's range
of enterprise software.
The deal is the biggest that the search giant has signed with one company for
its cloud-computing services, where software is offered as a service via the
internet.
The bank told the BBC it will use Google's tools only for internal
communication.
But the deal could be seen as a breakthrough in corporate adoption.
Banking - with its high security needs and strict regulations - was always
considered to be one of the last industries to accept cloud-computing.
BBVA's director of innovation, Carmen Herranz, stressed that all customer data
and other key banking systems would "stay in our own data centres" and be
completely separate from the cloud solution.
The bank would use Google applications like email, calendar, docs, chat, video
conferencing and other collaboration tools to "achieve a cultural change" and
get "the whole company working together" across the 26 countries where BBVA is
based.
Ms Herranz said the project - with roll-out across all employees to be complete
by the end of the year - was not about saving cost.
"The main goal is to promote innovation and making decisions and increase
productivity. We are in a challenging market and need to make faster and more
accurate decisions... and eliminate duplication," Ms Herranz told the BBC.
Also driving the change was the increasing mobility of the bank's workforce. A
lot of the bank's computing needs had moved to smartphones, tablets, laptops
and computers at home, she said.
Jose Olalla, chief information officer at BBVA, said because workers now had
"access [to] the information they need at any time from any internet-connected
device, anywhere in the world, [they] will be able to be more flexible and
mobile".
BBVA is one of Spain's largest banks.
It is also the largest provider of financial services in Mexico, and has a
large presence in the south of the United States.
'Largest ever deal'
Traditionally, companies have done all their computing on their own premises,
to keep their data secure and to stay in control.
However, most enterprises leave some 80% of their computing power idle, and
find themselves spending more than two thirds of their information technology
budget on maintenance and software upgrades.
Start Quote
To move to the future, you have to leave the past in a box
Carmen Herranz BBVA's director of innovation
Cloud computing tends to be much more efficient, with firms like Amazon Web
Services running their servers at more than 90% of capacity. That cuts cost and
also helps the environment.
The man in charge of Google Enterprise apps in Europe, Sebastien Marotte, said
that his corporate customers on average achieved cost savings of between 50%
and 70%.
But the deal with BBVA, argues Mr Marotte, is important not only "because it is
the largest ever agreement we have signed with an organisation, it is important
because it is a very large financial company, it shows that now even banks are
moving to the cloud".
BBVA's data would not reside on dedicated servers - a solution known as private
cloud - but would sit distributed across the public cloud of Google's data
centres. Both Mr Marotte and Ms Herranz stressed this would meet the demands of
banking regulators and data protection officials, and be as secure as any
solution on the bank's premises.
A bigger worry will be whether BBVA's computer network will be able to cope
with the sharp rise in network traffic that cloud-computing solutions demand.
A pilot with 7,000 staff had not seen any issues, but the bank would closely
monitor for any increases in network load. "Our biggest worry is around video
conferencing," said Ms Herranz.
Network issues were blamed on serious performance problems when several years
ago Google apps were introduced by the city of Los Angeles.
'Starting from scratch'
The biggest challenge for BBVA and other firms switching to cloud computing
could indeed be cultural issues.
The bank says it has a training programme in place - including personalised
guides - to prepare their staff for the move from their tried and trusted email
solution and other tools to the new browser-based online world.
However, the bank encourages its employees to leave all their old email and
data in those legacy systems. They will be accessible if necessary, but, says
Ms Herranz, but we "want to start from scratch... don't want to carry across
old behaviours".
"To move to the future, you have to leave the past in a box," said Ms Herranz.