Google Goes Against Microsoft

Google has made yet another step designed to threaten the dominance of Microsoft when it comes down to the market of productivity applications with its Office System. With the Reseller Program for Google Apps, the Mountain View-based search giant is looking to attract the interest of technology solution providers to take Google Apps to businesses around the world. Via the new channel program, resellers are offered the option to not only sell seats of Google Apps Premier Edition, but also customize and support Google's in-the-Cloud equivalent to Microsoft's Office.

"Google Apps has reached a level of maturity where it is useful and valuable for almost any business" Dave Girouard, president of Enterprise, Google, explained. "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."

Google Apps Premier Edition is a collection of communication and collaboration solutions hosted entirely in the Cloud by Google. The Mountain View company informed that business customers would be able to benefit from Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Talk, and Google Video either directly, or through resellers.

Up to this point in time, Google has managed to roll out no less than 50 pilot partners and have the suite adopted by over 1 million businesses and over 10 million users. Resellers will get 20% discounts for each seat of Google Apps Premier Edition deployed.

"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," Tony Safoian, president of IT firm SADA Systems Inc, added. "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."