There are more than 2 million businesses worldwide using Google Apps, and roughly 3,000 new ones sign-up for Google Apps each day. Atlassian is in the process of migrating from Zimbra to Google Apps, which many of us are eagerly awaiting, especially since most have been forwarding their mail from Zimbra to Google Mail anyway. Google Apps is a juggernaut, and it's no wonder Google is proud of the response it continues to receive.
The analog to Google Apps at Atlassian is JIRA Studio, our hosted software development suite. JIRA Studio (Studio for short) is our fastest growing product, which shouldn't be a surprise. In a single, hosted, just-turn-it-on-and-it-works product, Studio combines source control (Subversion), issue tracking (JIRA), agile planning (GreenHopper), enterprise wiki (Confluence), code browsing (FishEye), code reviews (Crucible) and continuous integration (Bamboo). All of that, beautifully integrated, and hosted as a single service. As a customer, you don't worry about managing or upgrading it - we take care of all that. Studio helps teams build great software, by giving them the tools they need to manage code and development projects, without the hassle of managing those tools.
So when Google decided to relaunch the Google Apps marketplace, it's no surprise they thought of Studio. For developers inside companies using Google Apps, Studio is the perfect complement. And now it's a perfectly integrated complement.

JIRA Studio for Google Apps
As of today, JIRA Studio is available from the Google Apps Marketplace. If you're a Google Apps customer, you can add Studio directly to your domain, straight from the marketplace. This means you'll logon to Studio using your Google username and password. If you're already logged in to Google Apps, JIRA Studio appears as a menu item at the top of any Google application, and you'll be signed in automatically to Studio when you select it.
But that's not all. We've also added some nifty features to Studio that integrate Google Apps and Studio together. The features are described in better detail here and include:
Oh, and here's a little video we put together to explain the combination at a high level. Hope you enjoy it:
SJUG:Michael Neale on RESTeasy, Matt Quail on Objectify
When: 6:00pm for 6:30 start, Thursday, 11th March 2010.
Where: Atlassian HQ, 173-185 Sussex St
Who: Michael Neale will be presenting first about 'RESTful web services in java (jax-rs/RESTEasy)'. Michael works for Red Hat, in the JBoss division, on the Drools project. He lives in the Blue Mountains, and has been working with java on and off since 2001.
The second presentation will given by Matt Quail on 'Objectify: The simplest possible typed abstraction to the Google App Engine datastore'. Matt is our lead architect of the FishEye and Crucible products. In his spare time he has recently become a committer on the Objectify project.
Cost: free (we're sponsoring beer and pizza on the night, as usual)
RSVP: before Thursday night
Agile Australia call for speakersThere is currently a call out for speakers for both Speaking spots and Lighting Presenters (submissions close end of April).
So if you're interested in Agile, make sure you throw your hat in the ring under one of these umbrellas:
Atlassian hosted a launch party for most of the Startup Bus crew last night. Over 40 people, many just meeting for the first time, gathered to get their survival kits*, eat, drink and talk about the next 48 hours on the road. We're happy to sponsor the Bus and we're keeping an eye on it as it makes its way to SXSW.
Now here's the fun part. Not only can you follow their Twitter stream here or become a fan on Facebook, you can also track their code commits. Every time they make a code commit via JIRA Studio, it's geotagged and displayed on an interactive Google Map on their website. Nice!
The party pics* Survival kit included water, granola bar, an apple, a Confluence t-shirt, product brochure, bottle opener, beer koozie, water and Tic Tac breath mints.
We're happy to let you know that we have launched two new exciting betas for our IDE connectors.
Atlassian Connector for Visual Studio 1.0-BETAWe have also launched the first beta of our brand new Atlassian Connector for Visual Studio. The Atlassian Connector for Visual Studio is the latest addition to the Atlassian IDE connectors, which also includes the Atlassian Connector for IntelliJ IDEA.
Release 1.0 of Atlassian Connector for Visual Studio will allow you to integrate JIRA issue tracker and Bamboo continuous integration server into your Visual Studio environment. Some features include:
The Atlassian Connector for Eclipse 2.0 introduces numerous new features, including:
For more details about the Atlassian Connector for Eclipse 2.0-BETA, please check out our release notes
What Next?We want your help to make these connectors even better! If you are using Eclipse or Visual Studio, please try out these connectors, and share your feedback by:

The National Hockey League (NHL) is widely considered to be the premier professional ice hockey league in the world. It was recently brought to my attention that they are happily using our tools, and they wouldn't mind chatting about how they use them.
I spoke with Andrus Adamchik based out of the NHL's New York headquarters. Andrus is in the Application Development department and has been at the NHL for the better part of a decade. The biggest take-away from the interview is that anyone who logs into the www.nhl.com is passed through Crowd, Atlassian's single sign-on (SSO) and identity management tool.
NHL at a glance
What is your role?
Consultant, Developer, and Architect. I helped design a more current and modern website. I have been one of the lead developers since 2006.
What department are you in?
Application Development.
What Atlassian products are you currently using?
JIRA, Confluence and Crowd.
How did the products make their way into the NHL?
I recommended them to the NHL. When we started a project in 2006, when we needed bug tracking software, it was a no brainer to use JIRA because I was familiar with it from doing various open source projects, including Apache Cayenne. Atlassian made a smart move giving free licenses to Open Source developers.
How are you using JIRA?
Internal bug tracking, but it has now spread around the organisation. A few hundered people are using it.
Do the different departments have their own projects?
Yes, exactly. Each development department or group has its own project. For example, we have one for sys admin and one for website development and so on. So, we have 5 projects right now.
What advice would you give another company considering using JIRA?
That it is one of the best tools on the market right now. We have tried a few other things. Maybe it is my past experience with JIRA, and I am biased, but it is really the best. We haven't even got into the customizations or plugins, we are just using the basic installation.
Just out of the box?
Yes. The only customization we have made is some workflow items. We organize our development and build process around JIRA workflow.
Can you comment on how Confluence spread in the company?
It was an organic growth. Some would send other people links to documents, and they would open it and start playing around. It spread organically, no one was forced to use it.
Prior to Confluence, was there another product in place?
It was the first wiki we brought in.
Have you guys done any customizations to Confluence?
Not yet. We just use it as is.
Do you know how many people are using Crowd on your site?
I can't give you the exact number, but it is anyone on the nhl.com website that logs in in the upper right hand corner of our site. All the social networking that we do, forums, and premium video packages; it all goes through Crowd. It is a LOT of people.
Do you use it for single sign-on between JIRA and Confluence?
Originally, we wanted to use Crowd for single sign-on, but because JIRA and Confluence evolved independently, we decided it was too much trouble to reconcile the accounts, we just left it as is.
Are there any other non-Atlassian tools that you integrate with?
Crowd integrates with our main application stack. We place a number of internal business frameworks inside the custom Crowd connectors.
Are people using our tools in ways you haven't expected?
Yes. When use started to spread out of our development group, many people wanted to have their own custom workflows. So, it was good the license we had supported custom workflows. I guess some other people wanted to tweak this and that, but mostly it was worklfow customizations.
Any final comments?
We have been relying on Atlassian tools for a couple of years and like Atlassian products.
Thanks Andrus!