Google is opening the doors to resellers for its Google Apps suite of office services. Businesses who want to use Gmail, Google docs and other Google offices services in lieu of Microsoft or other solutions will be able to sign up at Google or through any qualified value added reseller that chooses to carry the products.
Google says that more than 1 million businesses and 10 million users use Google Apps today, and 3,000 new businesses sign up daily. The largest business user, Genentech, has 20,000 employees on Google Apps.
The service is free for businesses that are willing to put up with ads, little customer service and relatively low storage limits. The premium version is $50/user/year. Most of the 10 million users are using the free version of the service, but Google says “hundreds of thousands” of users are paying for the service.
Resellers will be given the service at a 20% price reduction, or $40/user/year. Anything they charge above that is profit.
The reseller pilot program has been running for the last six months or so, Google says, with over fifty active partners. New resellers can sign up now and begin selling in March.
Google Apps competes with Yahoo’s Zimbra and Microsoft Outlook/Exchange Server for corporate office customers. All of the services have had high profile customer wins in the recent past.
That is certainly going to make things interesting. MS Office is where a lot of M$FT money is made.
Microsofts’ second golden egg is MS Office, I am sure they will release some sort of Office Live service (if they haven’t already) in the very near future to compete with Google… what Google is doing now is creating brand awareness but more importantly, making people comfortable doing business related activities without resorting to Office. If I was Microsoft… I would be seriously concerned.
Jon
http://2xStocks.com
Doubling my money, one stock at a time
“what Google is doing now is creating brand awareness” is really very important at this time, as time goes by people wont have any attachment to whoever service provider is (Google, MS, Salesforce,…) as long as these services follow certain standards. This path is very scary and devastating to MS in the long run.
That’s huge.
has this changed b/c my current account costs $50 a year…
It’s about time the TinyFlacid got some competition.
OR
Google replaces Oracle…
Oh… huh? this isn’t Digg?
I think $50/month/user is too much. I know my customers wouldn’t pay me for that if I were a reseller. $50/year/user is more like it.
“The premium version is $50/user/year” — not ‘month’. Either you read that wrong or the author corrected a typo in the article.
i corrected a typo
Mike, your first link doesn’t work. You really need some quality assurance over at TC.
Michael, it’s not “in liu”. It’s “in lieu”. Lieu means “location” in French. That was Sebastien, for “one French word a day”
No he’s talking about Lucy Liu cmon guys
It means instead, not location. Jesus.
http://en.wikti...wiki/au_lieu_de
Not that french is a real language.
well it sort of means “location” – the phrase means “in place of” and it’s actually “en lieu” or more precisely “en lieu et place de” – as usual, we have taken a phrase from another language, butchered it and tried to use it in our already hugely troublesome language…ce qui sera sera
place = destination So he’s sort of right and sort of wrong. Just like you Chris.
How long did French last in Louisiana. That used to be 1/3 of the United States. Oh yeah that’s right?
Do you know why French is still used in Canada?
Because they force people to use it by law. Otherwise nobody would want to. Nobody would willingly send their kids to French language schools or even bother with it.
They keep french around because it makes skilless, soulless people money translating TV, movies, and other services, everything down to books and gift cards, where as they would have no economy otherwise.
Give people the choice of language, and they will NEVER EVER choose French.
With that said, who cares if it’s misused.
Like I said, it’s not even a real language.
Why would you pay for an otherwise free service? Both have pop3 / imap / mobile? What’s the point? How am I going to convince a business to convert to google mail and pay?
I’m going to have to make this post anonymously. I see corporate clients all the time.
I can see them totally downgrading a company for recommending this as a consultancy. Turning down their bid the next time a project comes along.
When companies go to consulting firms they look for uncommon professional knowledge.
If a company came to you for hosting and you told them to “simply use godaddy hosting”. It’s cheap, has high up time and is reliable backed by Bob Parsons himself.
They would kick you to the curb.
This isn’t the Chris in the other posts. This is an unrelated Chris telling it like it is from an insider’s point of view.
speaking of which…
http://www.wildwestdomains.com
Bob Parsons did this way before Google. This is like the most time wasting unsuccessful thing you could possibly do.
Unproductive to the very core of internet business.
I good ol Bob has been pulling in reseller prospectors for about 8 years now.
That last sentence should read
“I think good ol Bob has been pulling in reseller prospectors for about 8 years now.”
You’re somewhat wrong here.
A lot of companies and small businesses don’t want or need online management systems of the ‘high-cost-mission-critical-corporate-enterprise-server-yadda-yadda’ variety.
Google Apps reseller program will be great for all developers/dev companies/consultants to proudly add to their offerings for certain small & enterprise alike. Why? Because it’s Google. And it’s good. That’s why some big orgs/enterprises already *are* using it.
It totally depends on the “client,” obviously. For sure, for many it’s not nearly up-to-par and very very limited in capability [although Gmail is an absolute killer service and getting better since Google acquired Postini]. But that doesn’t change the fact that a lot of companies want to and/or should use Google. It’s only going to get better. And if you’re not offering them an easy road to getting it (’cause it doesn’t pay as much maybe), then so it goes: others will.
Hey, if you can make money off of this, or even GoDaddy’s domain sellin’ API, then GO FOR IT!!!!
I wish high power corporate clients here in California were that forgiving where they could be resold Google Apps or Godaddy services.
Peoples out here are real smart ‘n the like.
My question was not why a company would use it. We use it, we are a company. My question is more so: why pay for it? They are offering pop3 / imap on free versions of the gmail. Why pay for what we already get?
If we had to pay, we would. But I would have a hard time convincing anyone even remotely in the ‘know’ that they should be paying for an otherwise free service.
@Chris
In many scenarios that exactly what consultants or developers do: they turn around and implement what works and what already exists. Whether that means setting up someone’s small shopping site (cart) or implementing one of the plethora of MS or Java server software.
I would think most people would understand the value of a Google Apps as another service that can now be implemented or recommended by others. Think added-services; it will greatly compliment any other service one may be implementing for another (e.g. shopping cart) So I’m not sure what kind of people out near you are “real smart ‘n the like” enough to not see the value of Google Apps — even if it’s not right for them.
Also, reselling programs in general — since you mention GoDaddy’s — have been around since the dawn of ebusiness and are a lot more profitable than you apparently realize. It’s entirely dependent on whether the reselling API is open enough (i.e. making it easy to completely brand/utilize the service) and easy to control. While other some programs, of course, are just shams by the provider to actually rip-off the resellers by creating a lot of hassle. Speaking of domains and resellers, for instance, that’s how a lot of domain registrars got their start (recent example: Namecheap, which I use sometimes, used/uses Enom).
But beyond segmented examples, don’t miss the larger point: having an array of services you can provide to clients by reselling various services as one package makes life easier for you and the client. Again, GApps will be just the right solution for many; whereas, those same people being overcharged high fees by consultants telling them to use server software XYZ doesn’t sound “real smart” of them to me. :p
@Anthony
This is why:
http://www.goog...s/editions.html
Notably:
*Email Security, powered by Postini
*Email Archiving, powered by Postini
Which is a *requirement* for most larger companies’ policies.
“Which is a *requirement* for most larger companies’ policies.”
Large companies also have a requirement that their internal data can not be stored on external servers.
This is clearly aimed at foreign business with lax standards and requirements.
Foreign businesses leaders are less likely to kick the tires.
excuse the gigantic yawn. no serious business would pay money for that crap – from a reseller or directly from goog. what recent wins?
i find it hard to believe million businesses use google apps suite of office services
Great article and great product. Google will really be reliant on Resellers here for this to scale as many larger customers will need to really understand what this is all about.
I am in NE Pennsylvania (far away from SV) and you wouldn’t believe the dropped jaws I get when I show people what we do internally here at Viddler with Google Docs. That being said, I don’t know one person that has been impressed that has gone out and started using it. I think it’s because the learning curve is high for people living in the MS Exchange world.
Rob,
We are one of the resellers in the pilot program. We don’t see or sell Google Apps as a replacement for MS Office, the Doc and Spreadsheet aren’t mature enough.
We do sell it easily as a better hosted email solution with more storage, a great web interface, support for IMAP clients, and free blackberry integration.
We also sell it as a lower cost option for companies looking at the hardware and software cost of moving to Exchange 2007. Beyond the core costs of MS Exchange, Google Apps includes the spam and virus protection, redundancy, and availability businesses need without building multi-server clusters.
Finally, we see the Google Sites component as a viable replacement for about 75% of all planned Sharepoint sites. Easy to build and secure with much lower administrative overhead, Sites are included in the price.
For a small company, say 20 to 50 users, we can provide email, calendars with group and resource scheduling, internal project sites, and customer portals for 65-80% less than an in-house solution.
Regards,
Allen
http://www.hori...nfoservices.com
We have developed a tool (KiGoo) to provide Google Apps user the same experience using MS Outlook but with Google Services in the cloud. (calendars and contacts). We are launching this week a new version to work with multiple calendars and off line browsing mode.
So, IMAP or POP, plus Contacts and Calendars inside Outlook, maybe Google Apps has a chance to win..
http://www.getkigoo.com
GMail is good, but Google Apps? What an utter piece of poorly integrated, poorly supported crap. I am speaking from experience. I would rather pay more and use a product that is well designed and well supported. These issues should be considered when evaluating the true cost of using Google Apps. I do not care how many people supposedly use it. Many people have been using Microsoft Office for decades. Besides, signing up for Google Apps is easy… how many people actually use it?
I wonder how the internet would be without Google. I guess it’d be like the computer industry without Apple. Scary thought, don’t you think?
Oh what the ****
Good move by Google if they were going to be serious about making Google Apps a decent revenue stream. Partners can offer much better value add, helping get businesses over the hump of switching from MS Office. Plus of course resellers have the business relationships that Google does not.
Certainly the product is a long way from MS Office, but leveraging a reseller channel is a good way to start accelerating adoption in the business world. And a lot better than them trying to do it on their own.
I know several businesses in the Seattle area that use GMail and Google Apps. Here are use cases.
1. GMail and Domain Names. You can send and receive GMail through your domain name. So to the outside world it looks like you are hosting your own mail. However, you don’t have any of the hassles of hosting.
2. Sales Contacts. Corporate GMail allows you to view your employee’s e-mail. This is useful if you are managing a team of salespeople. Even if they leave you don’t lose their contacts and leads.
3. Sharepoint/Portal. Google Apps are great for sharing information. They can be used for tracking issues, bugs, meeting notes, sales scripts, and for sharing documents.
4. Reseller. Why would someone use a reseller? A reseller can provide value-added services. He can get the domain set up, set up GMail accounts with that domain. He might also create a website for the small business. Google Apps might make sense bundled in a larger online package.
Asim,
As one of the pilot resellers, you are right on the mark.
Google Sites for internal and customer portals is one of our best selling poings.
We package full setup, which can be quite technical when you include the optional services, such as spam and virus protection. We also assist with email migration, provide end user support, and offer user training.
Regards,
Allen
http://www.hori...nfoservices.com
the ceo of genantech sits on the board of google. nuff said.
best,
Good move Google. I have a question, what about the hosting service? I believe hosting is primary things from any business to show their web presence it will be difficult to manage/customize website using Google Site.
You are right, Google Sites are not good for websites — it’s not the intent of the application.
Google Web Pages will evolve into the website tools. It is very young and simplistic today.
Web site hosting will come eventually.
Allen
http://www.hori...nfoservices.com
But you can use your domain with all the Apps so you would not be using Gmail you would be using it as the client. The good thing is that they offer 99% uptime.
You can also do alot more than share docs, You can Chat oh the joy I can now chat with the guy next desk to me.
good news for the sales engineers, one more thing to sell
Google seems to be loosing its battle in Russia as Firefox just annonced that the Russian search engine yandex.ru will be the default one on the new version of firefox (http://tinyurl.com/7pbaro
– Russian version of techcrunch).
It’s pretty stupid to outsource all your emailing to one hackable company that will always be a very interesting target.
Gentlemen, start your engines.
As opposed to thinking that you can do it better than Google! (maybe you can, but most cannot)
This market is so big that even a small part of it will be extremely lucrative for Google. let’s face it – they are very good at casting their net in every profit pool. Despite the GoogleApps limitations mentioned here, it’s bound to be another profit source for Google.
If the Google Apps API (http://code.goo....com/apis/apps/) provides an interface to automatically sign up new accounts… so that resellers can automatically manage (and sell) Google Apps accounts … I can see this thing become huge…
But if it remains a manual transaction (meaning that you have to register every account by hand), then I consider the odds of this being a succes very low.
Melvin,
During the pilot, we tested an initial API that lets resellers provision accounts, users, and features. It was a great start.
Google will provide resellers with the web-based tools they need to manage the business.
Allen