Google to 'share the wealth' with partners on Apps Premier Edition

Expanding on its efforts to drive revenues from its online application suite, Google this week launched a plan to help authorized reseller partners sell, customize and support the Premier Edition of Google Apps.

Beyond the capabilities included in the free but ad-supported edition of Google Apps, the Premier Edition offers features such as Google Video (although we've learned today that may be scaled back), calendar resource scheduling, SSL enforcement for secure HTTPS access, and e-mail and phone support, according to a comparison chart on Google's Web site.

Provided as a software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering, the cloud-based suite includes Google Docs, Google Sites, Gmail, and Google Calendar.

"Google is no stranger to the subscription-based software delivery model as its Google Apps Premier and Education editions have proven quite convincingly there there is indeed a market willing to pay for online-delivered applications," noted Carmi Levy, senior VP at AR Communications, and a frequent Betanews contributor.

In sharing the wealth from Premier Edition with reseller partners, Google will offer them a portal providing business and technical information and online discussion groups, Google said in a statement.

Other offerings will include integration APIs for directory synchronization; e-mail migration, reporting, and single sign-on; sales training; technical training, and customer marketing materials; and reseller tools for setting up business customers, provisioning end users, management, and reporting.

Google is targeting the new program at resellers working with both enterprises and smaller businesses. The program was previously tested among more than 50 Google pilot partners.

"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 any time, anywhere access to information," contended Laurent Gasser, CEO of Paris-based Google partner Revevol.

But smaller businesses might be particularly receptive right now to Google's new program for the Premier Edition, some analysts suggested.

"Over time, Google has continued to enhance its offerings and, while they are not yet credible threats to feature-rich productivity suites like Microsoft Office, they nevertheless serve as indicators of where the market is going," Levy told Betanews. "Microsoft's slow but inevitable shift toward integrating greater online functionality into its cash cow Office franchise validates Google's strategy and indicates quite strongly that the future of desktop productivity applications really does lie in the online model."

"Small and medium-sized enterprises love this model because it frees them from supporting complex productivity applications on client PCs. Google's pricing model [significantly] undercuts the licensing, deployment and maintenance costs associated with traditional shrink-wrapped applications, and it frees IT to focus on other aspects of its infrastructure," he continued. "Although security, accountability and management concerns remain top of mind for many enterprises, cloud-based solutions are increasingly being seen as viable alternatives for organizations whose end users may not necessarily need every last feature found in a traditional productivity app."