Google to launch reseller program for Apps

Updated January 14, 6:08 a.m. PST, to reflect Google's official announcement.

Google on Wednesday launched a new authorized reseller program for Google Apps. It will let partnered businesses wrap up Google Apps with their own services in special bundles that can be resold. This includes things like localized customer service, hardware installation, file migration, and special hosting for things that fall outside of Google's built-in Sites service.

Google has been pilot-testing the reseller program with 50 companies since last summer. Now it's open to anyone, and will be available everywhere in the world. As a bonus, resellers in the U.S. get a 20 percent discount on the $50 per user, per year price tag.

As part of the deal, resellers get full control over things like customer billing and account management. Google is expecting this to be a big help in moving medium- to large-size companies over to Google Apps platform. Rishi Chandra, senior product manager for Google Apps, told CNET News that "there's great opportunity to take something like (Google Apps) and roll it out with support. We're never going to roll out a big services group." With the reseller program, Google expects partners to deliver that while being able to customize the platform for each customer's needs.

Paul Slakey, Google's director of enterprise channels, hopes the new program will widen the reach of Google Apps. "It's a good fit with service providers. For Web-hosting presence it's a natural extension. For things like business productivity software, dial tone or broadband access, it's going to be a managed service to provide to their customers."

A small and unfortunate side effect of this new program is that Google will be placing a cap on the maximum users one can have in the Standard edition of Google apps. That means new users will be capped at 50 sub-user accounts and will have to pay to step up to the Premiere level of service if they want to go over that. Existing users of the Standard edition will simply be "grandfathered" past this restriction, similar to what happened to existing users when the company launched the paid Premiere service back in early 2007.

[slecalvez]

This is Google desperately seeking new revenue streams....

[lmasanti]

Why "desperately"? They acknoledge that they are not going to do a good support to users, so they let others provide the support.

[celticbrewer]

I don't think "desperate" means it's a bad idea, just that Google needs "new revenue streams" as sated. Considering all that google offers for free, that stuff costs them money to develop and provide. You say it's all ad-supported; but in a recession, advertising is usually the first place companies go to cut costs. So, yes, google is desperately trying to find new revenue streams as the commenter wrote.

[allenfalcon]

As one of the pilot resellers, there is nothing desperate about Google building a channel.

Given the breadth of the application and the capabiltiies of some of the services, Google realizes that value-add services from channel partners will lead to success with small and mid-size businesses.

Setup has multiple steps, particularly if you activate the Postini-based spam/'virus protection. Most companies want to migrate existing emails from their current hosting service or in-house server. Google Apps work differently and have capabilties that differ from current applications -- user education and training improves adoption and utilization. We can identify capabilities, that users may not think of initially, that can add value and improve efficiency.

We, like most of the existing resellers, bundle services with Google Apps. Our customers get up and runinng faster, and use more features more quickly than those that "self service".

Regards,
Allen
www.horizoninfoservices.com