Google Moves Its Corporate Applications to the Internet - The CIO Report - WSJ

Likely a leading indicator

"Google is currently migrating to the new approach and intends for the entire company to eventually use this model, according to the paper. With the new model access depends solely on the device and user credentials, regardless of the employee’s network location. That means employee access is treated the same whether the user is at a corporate office, at home or in a coffee shop. This setup does away with the conventional virtual private network connection into the corporate network. It also encrypts employee connections to corporate applications, even when an employee is connecting from a Google building.

With this approach, trust is moved from the network level to the device level. Employees can only access corporate applications with a device that is procured and actively managed by the company. In this setup, Google requires a device inventory database that keeps track of computers and mobile devices issued to employees as well as changes made to those devices."

Google Moves Its Corporate Applications to the Internet - The CIO Report - WSJ