In a move aimed at mounting a significant challenge to Microsoft's Office suite of computer desktop  software applications, Mountain View, California-based Google has announced a global incentive-based program that will allow resellers to offer the Internet giant's premium Google Apps Web-based application suite to business clients. The program began accepting applications from companies Wednesday, Google said. Google Vendor Program To Launch In March Beginning at the end of March resellers that have been approved by and received training from Google will be able to sell, customize and support Google Apps Premier Edition, which is comprised of Google Docs word processor, spreadsheet and presentation programs, a calendar application, an upgraded version of the Gmail Web-based e-mail service, the Google Sites wiki, Google Talk chat service, Google Video for businesses application and numerous additional tools. Resellers in the new Google vendor program will be able to sell premium Google Apps packages to businesses worldwide, with an added incentive for selling to firms in the United States in the form of a 20 percent discount on Google's normal rate of $50 annually per user, lowering the price for resellers to about $40 per year for each user. Although details were not immediately available, Google was expected to eventually offer similar discounts to vendors selling to businesses in regions other than the U.S. How much additional money a reseller in the new Google program decides to charge businesses for either one-time or annual access, billing, support, training or management is left up to each authorized Google Apps vendor, Google said. Participants in the program will benefit from new revenue opportunities while businesses of all sizes will have additional ways to buy the Google hosted applications, sometimes referred to as cloud computing services, Google said Wednesday in announcing the reseller plan. Resellers To Offer Custom Versions Of Google Apps Resellers in the new program will be able to bundle additional support and services with Google Apps Premier Edition, and will have access to help from Google including "training, support, and tools for sales and marketing" and "access to tools for integrating Google Apps" into the business operations of their clients, Google said. Companies preferring to do business with local firms  that might not otherwise use Google's services could be drawn to them through the new reseller program, which will let resellers bill their customers directly. "Many appreciate the services provided by local firms who are intimately familiar with their particular needs," noted Google Apps Channels director Stephen Cho. "We're looking forward to working with a broad range of partners, from VARs and IT consultants to professional services firms and global systems integrators, to ISPs and other SaaS providers," Cho wrote in a message posted Wednesday to the Google enterprise blog. Google will offer its resellers training for sales and the technical aspects of supporting Google Apps Premier Edition, along with marketing materials available in 25 languages and tools for integrating the services through new application programming interfaces, or APIs, that will perform tasks such as migrating customer data into Google Apps and various reporting functions, Google said. Google Opens Reseller Applications With Minimal Requirements Google said that it would evaluate firms applying to take part in the new reseller program based on criteria that included credit history and relevant experience. While the application process was open Wednesday to anyone interested in the reseller program, authorization was expected to be given only to those vendors that had signed up a minimum of 25 users or businesses. No fee was required to apply for acceptance in the Google reseller program, however the 20 percent discount margin was not applicable to the first 25 users or businesses vendors sign up. A certification for the new Google reseller program was also expected. Implications In Battle With Microsoft And Other Rivals While Microsoft's Office suite of business applications was designed to be installed on individual computers, Web-hosted applications such as Google's reside on vast arrays of data center servers, a configuration that can appeal to some businesses not wanting the burden of installing, maintaining and servicing applications on their own computers, features Google has said help consumers bypass IT departments and the delays they can sometimes bring. A SearchEngineWorld image below, courtesy of Google, shows an example of how the new vendor program works.  Google May Have Chance To Make Inroads As Microsoft Readies Next Office Suite Businesses have been more hesitant than individuals to store private information using online software-as-a-service applications such as Google Apps, often fearful that sensitive company or personal information will reside on servers owned and maintained by another entity, such as Google. In addition to security concerns, some businesses have been hesitant to move to cloud computing applications due to the occasional availability concerns inherent with a technology that can only function fully with a working Internet connection. When hosted application providers have experienced slow-downs or service outages, users have become frustrated over not being able to update information that could be changed using traditional desktop-based software, although Google and other hosted application providers have sought workarounds for these shortcomings. Microsoft, the world's largest software maker, said in October that it plans to incorporate basic Web-hosted versions of some of its Office applications in the next version of the suite, tentatively called Office 14, although the Redmond, Washington company has not yet offered a release date earlier than 2010, a situation likely to give the reseller program Google announced Wednesday ample time to make inroads in the hosted business application market. Microsoft has more than 440,000 resellers according to some estimates, through which it sells the vast majority of its software. In addition to Microsoft's upcoming Office release, Google faces challenges from hosted applications offered by Abode, Zoho, IBM and Yahoo with it's Zimbra service. Nearing Second Anniversary, Google Apps Looks To Expand Scope Since launching in February 2007 the Google Apps service, which is also offered in a basic free advertising-supported version with limited technical support and online storage capacity, more than 10 million active users and 1 million businesses in over 100 countries have used the Web-based Google applications, Google said, however its premium package had heretofore only been sold through a group of about 300 of its employees through the Web and was unavailable from other vendors. Wednesday's announcement has changed that, opening up sales to an unlimited number of vendors. More than 100 improvements have been added to Google Apps, which presently receives some 3,000 new business sign-ups daily, according to Google director of enterprise channels Paul Slakey. "We believe there's a great opportunity to do even more by helping IT solution providers grow their business opportunities around cloud computing," Slakey said in a message posted Wednesday to Google's company blog. The new Google reseller program will "help more IT professionals build cloud computing expertise" and will offer "tools that enable bundling of sales, customization and support for Google Apps Premier Edition for customers of all sizes," Slakey added. The biggest company to move its workers to the Google Apps computing environment has been Genentech, which employs about 20,000 workers. Although Google has not released the exact number of customers using the premium version of Google Apps, research firm Gartner Research has estimated that roughly 200,000 are paying for the service. As of Wednesday new businesses using the basic free version of Google Apps will for the first time face a limit on the number of employees who can use the service, which Google has capped at 50. The limit was not applicable to businesses already using the free version of Google Apps, nor to nonprofit organizations and educational institutions which were exempted from the new cap, Google said. Google And Pilot Program Testers Anticipate Growth After several years of testing and numerous upgrades, the features offered in Google Apps Premium Edition are now ready for nearly any business, said Google president of enterprise Dave Girouard. "Google Apps has reached a level of maturity where it is useful and valuable for almost any business. This program gives IT solution providers an easy way to introduce cloud computing to their service offerings, while helping more businesses make the transition to this new era of technology," Girouard said in a Wednesday statement. One of more than 50 resellers testing the new program during a pilot "fine-tuning" phase was technology company SADA Systems Inc., which has seen success in selling the so-called software-as-a-service -- or SaaS -- features offered through the Google program, according to president Tony Safoian. "We believe strongly that all companies will adopt SaaS to one degree or another, and Google's reseller program empowers us to be experts in the cloud," Safoian said. "Reselling Google Apps opens up new opportunities via new conversations we could not have had with prospective clients as little as two years ago. What Google Apps offers -- if you take into consideration the pace of innovation, the collaboration tools, and the built-in disaster recovery -- is not available anywhere else at any price; when you add that our clients can save 75% of costs versus doing this all on-premise, it is often an easy sell," added Safoian. Google Launches Reseller Program For Its Microsoft Office Rival Google Apps Another company that helped Google test the reseller program announced Wednesday was Paris-based technology firm Revevol, whose chief executive Laurent Gasser saw several benefits to being able to sell the Google premium Apps service to businesses. "Today, the maturity of Google Apps after such a short period of time is amazing," said Gasser. "For our large organization clients, Apps is now a real option on all deals where CIOs and top management are looking to replace their legacy solutions while saving costs and enabling anytime, anywhere access to information," Gasser added. Google has sought to expand into areas beyond its extremely successful core search advertising business. Reaction to the new Google reseller program was mostly positive among industry observers, such as one member of the popular WebmasterWorld online message forums, who saw the vendor program as, among other things, "a way for resellers and integrators to get the pretty Google logo in their front window beside the Microsoft Windows and the fading Novell logos." Related Links :
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