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Software Google Looks to Resellers for Its Apps
Shane McGlaun (Blog) - January 15, 2009 1:23 PM
Print 24 comment(s) - last by blueyeitln.. on Jan 20 at 8:33 PM
Google hopes resellers are key to competing with Microsoft Office

Microsoft is well known for many things, most notably its Windows operating systems that are used by the majority of PCs on the planet. The massive software firm is also known for its very popular Microsoft Office productivity suite.

Google launched a competing productivity suite called Google Apps a while back in hopes of competing with Microsoft Office. The main difference between the Microsoft and Google offerings was that consumers could get free versions of Google Apps and Google's offering is web based rather than being software you buy and install on your local PC.

Google has announced that it is looking to better compete with Office by seeking out third-party resellers to sell its Apps to corporations. Since the launch of Google Apps in 2007, sales of the software have been direct to business over the Internet.

Google has no doubt seen that the vast majority of the Office sales Microsoft enjoys are done through its vast network of resellers. According to Reuters, a full 95% of all Office sales are made through Microsoft resellers.

Google has a long way to go before it can be seen as a realistic challenger to Office and has in comparison to Google only dipped its toe in the reseller waters. Google has been running trials with over 50 resellers in 25 different countries in addition to its relationship with Salesforce.com as a reseller.

Tiffani Bova from Gartner Research told Reuters, "We feel that Google has had limited success in winning customers with a singular sales channel." She estimates that Google has about 200,000 Premier customers for its productivity applications today.

The resellers Google is hoping to land are partners like web hosting companies that sell to business of all size. Google is offering a decent deal to this sort of reseller allowing them to buy its Premier Edition at a 20% discount and then letting the reseller keep the recurring revenue for the lifetime of the customer relationship.

Analysts still say resellers or not, Google is still a long way from placing pressure on Microsoft Office. Many companies still prefer to have software in house rather than web-hosted could applications like Google Apps Premier.

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Um..
By Spivonious on 1/15/2009 1:56:04 PM , Rating: 5
I'm pretty sure the reason that Google Apps isn't competing with MS Office is because it's not as full-featured, and it's all web-based. What happens when the company's internet connection goes down?




RE: Um..
By drebo on 1/15/09, Rating: 0
RE: Um..
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 1/15/2009 2:18:12 PM , Rating: 5
For businesses though the issue is do they want to trust Google with their files? The answer is always no. This is what kills all these large internet cloud computing efforts in the business world. Cloud computing is fine, as long as its restricted to the internal network only and no way to get out.


RE: Um..
By drebo on 1/15/2009 2:32:43 PM , Rating: 2
How's it any different than trusting Yahoo or Hotmail with their email?

I know tons of small businesses who use Yahoo, Charter, or Hotmail for their email service and always complain about how flakey it is. I'm taking about businesses that are 5-20 employees. Companies that cannot afford/maintain internal servers and don't want to pay for someone like me to do it for them. Hell, I've known companies that will email their quickbooks data to their accountant firm through Yahoo. Exactly how much safer is that than Google?

This is no different. A document housed on a local improperly secured network is likely far less secure than a document on Google's server. At the same time, the small companies now are not required to spend $250+ on Microsoft Office for every employee, instead spending $50/employee/year on something they can use from anywhere any time.

If there's one thing that small companies hate, it's capital expense. Something like this gives them (for the most part) just as good a product at no capital expense.


RE: Um..
By ebakke on 1/15/2009 2:50:10 PM , Rating: 2
I think Kenobi was referring to medium and large businesses


RE: Um..
By Master Kenobi (blog) on 1/15/2009 6:19:23 PM , Rating: 2
Ditto. Tiny businesses (<25 People) come and go like the wind so I don't even factor them into these sorts of debates.

I'm strictly talking about Medium and Large Business/Enterprise. These guys wouldn't be caught dead using this. Only companies I know of that even use a large quantity of open source is Sun and Novell, no surprise both of them are circling the drain and have been for years. But even they see the value in keeping documents and emails in house where they belong.


RE: Um..
By drebo on 1/15/2009 9:04:27 PM , Rating: 1
Actually, you're wrong. There are many small companies which could benefit from this which do not "come and go like the wind". Think about it: every private medical practice in the US is a sub-25 person company. In fact, small, local companies probably comprise a significant amount of all business in the US.

Aside from that, there ARE actually companies moving to this in lieu of Microsoft Exchange as the maintenance costs per employee are far lower. Prudential, for instance, uses Google Apps for a number of its employees. There are others, but I'm drawing a blank right now.

As I said, this is a niche product, and probably will not see a large following in big business. However, there are just as many people who work for smaller businesses who would love to use this.


RE: Um..
By blueyeitln on 1/20/2009 8:33:26 PM , Rating: 2
Since some haven't actually tested the waters, I thought I would add my two cents.

We have been using GApps for almost a year now. My company has over 250 employees and Google Apps works excellent. Some are setup as IMAP and some setup as POP. Downtime has been extremely limited. They are adding new features and that will only make it better. By the way we are not affiliated with Google in any way. We are just extremely happy that we found a reliable email company whom doesn't shut us down for days to have to fix problems. We have faced that a few times in the past. We were a little leary about it in the beginning and now we love it. I've also passed it on to friends from other companies and they love it too. They have an excellent interface to make changes and they are done in seconds.

I wasn't a fan of their's till I used it.

Thanks GOOGLE!!


RE: Um..
By Dreifort on 1/15/2009 3:44:26 PM , Rating: 2
the same emails that have been hacked numerous times? Palin is the biggest example.


RE: Um..
By 4wardtristan on 1/15/2009 6:03:06 PM , Rating: 2
had you read past the news articles title, you would know that:

palins emails were not hacked. her secret questions were guessed by a 17-y/o teenager. that is all.


RE: Um..
By xRyanCat on 1/15/2009 6:03:22 PM , Rating: 2
That was due to the relative weakness of the password, not the e-mail service its self. Poor user practices, such as weak passwords, can undermine even the must secure system.


RE: Um..
By hadifa on 1/15/2009 7:09:37 PM , Rating: 2
And this in itself undermines using cloud computing.

There are potentially many benefits for cloud computing and it seems to be the way of the future but there are disadvantages as well at the moment. I think there will be some middle grounds to improve the reliability of the service and the security and privacy of the data.

For example:

Having local, low spec servers for emergency situations which can hold a copy of the data as well. (like a emergency generator in a hospital)

Having all the data Encrypted before being sent so the cloud service provider cannot access the data.

and so on.

As it is usually the case, a combination of the approaches will most likely satisfy businesses. Putting all your companies data online poses a significant risk that most executives would rather cut their wrist before taking it. That said, the appeal and benefits of cloud computing are not ignorable either.

Most likely, the current economic situation will play as catalyst to push medium sized businesses towards considering cloud computing.


RE: Um..
By Dreifort on 1/15/2009 3:36:37 PM , Rating: 2
that is why Windows Live will never take off. It's catchy...but so was MySpace.


RE: Um..
By 16nm on 1/15/2009 4:18:37 PM , Rating: 2
quote:
On the flip side of the coin, though, the company now doesn't need to worry about what happens to the files that some idiot employee has been ignorantly saving his files to his PC and then has his PC stolen or broken.


Many companies configure terminal servers on their networks to solve this problem (among others).


RE: Um..
By drebo on 1/15/2009 4:37:02 PM , Rating: 2
The intended market for this, as has been stated numerous times, is small offices that cannot afford the expense of setting up and maintaining that type of server.


RE: Um..
By Dreifort on 1/15/2009 3:47:23 PM , Rating: 2
what happens if you live in China and the government decides it doesn't like the propaganda you are using in your business and shuts your Google Apps off.


We've been using Open office for a while.
By Chudilo on 1/15/2009 2:24:00 PM , Rating: 2
We have been using open office for almost a year now.
(We are a web retailer company)




RE: We've been using Open office for a while.
By matt0401 on 1/15/2009 3:10:09 PM , Rating: 2
I've been using it for a few years now. At first I was just forcing myself to use it for the sake of using cool, free, open-source software. It was annoyingly quite bloated back then compared to Microsoft Office. They've really refined it though in recent versions. I'm impressed at how much quicker it loads and just how much sharper it feels. I think it's at the point where it's a viable alternative to Microsoft Office, even for massive corporations.


By Clauzii on 1/15/2009 1:53:53 PM , Rating: 2
As long as Google Apps don't contain database and spreadsheet functions, nothing will really happen. Ok, some small businesses might find Mail, Calendar, Text adequate, but to compete with the 'big ones', more is needed.




By bodar on 1/15/2009 6:36:39 PM , Rating: 2
May want to check your facts there. Even the free Google Apps has a spreadsheet app, although, like the rest of Google Apps, it's not as powerful as Excel/OO Calc. It can do formulas though, so I'd assume the majority of spreadsheet work is possible. I don't know if there are size limits. My SO uses it to track her monthly expenses.

It also does Slide Presentations and Email Forms.

Personally, the only arena I see Google Apps as any real competition for Office is small to mid-size businesses and/or where the user only needs the most basic functions of Office.


By Clauzii on 1/16/2009 1:38:47 AM , Rating: 2
On the danish Google Apps site there was no word on a spreadsheet, but You got my point :)


It's About Advertising
By Inkjammer on 1/15/2009 2:34:14 PM , Rating: 2
For Google being part advertising company their main problem is they don't advertise their apps, programs, projects or other endeavours for jack. There are a METRIC TON of Google Apps out there, but a quick look at Google's site... and you can't find them. You have to click "More" and then "Even More" before you come to a full list. They're buried, obscure and not apparent to the average user. Most people don't even know they're out there.

Word of mouth works, but only so far. As they say, "Out of sight, out of mind."




Google Apps - LARGE BUSINESS
By blueyeitln on 1/20/2009 8:29:41 PM , Rating: 2
Since some haven't actually tested the waters, I thought I would add my two cents.

We have been using GApps for almost a year now. My company has over 250 employees and Google Apps works excellent. Some are setup as IMAP and some setup as POP. Downtime has been extremely limited. They are adding new features and that will ony make it better. I'm not affiliated with Google in any way. Myself and the company are just extremely happy that we found a reliable email company whom doesn't shut us down for days to have to fix problems. We have faced that a few times in the past. We were a little leary about it in the beginning and now we love it. I've also passed it on to friends from other companies and they love it too. They have an excellent interface to make changes and they are done in seconds.

I wasn't a fan of their's till I used it.

Thanks GOOGLE!!




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