Apps Premier intended to complement, not compete: Google 25 February, 2007 By Patricia Pickett

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The Mountain View, CA-based search giant has launched Google Apps Premier Edition, which for US$50 per user account per year will include Google Docs, web-based word processing program, and Google Spreadsheets; 10GB of storage per user; support for mobile Gmail on BlackBerry handheld devices; 24/7 phone support for critical issues; 99.9-per-cent uptime service level agreements for Gmail; application-level control for administrators to adapt services to business policies; application program interfaces (APIs) for data migration, user provisioning, single sign-on and mail gateways; and a new set of administration and business integration capabilities. This is all on top of what is already offered through the Standard and Education editions of Apps, launched last August. These two editions, which Google will continue to offer for free, include Gmail webmail services, Google Calendar, GoogleTalk instant messaging and voice-over-IP, and tools for creating web pages.

"Businesses could use the standard edition, but some of them have some additional requirements, such as more storage, 24/7 support, and the need for additional APIs or integration points that allow you to enhance the platform," said Kevin Smith, head of enterprise partnerships for Google. "We came up with this offering to address those different needs and come out with a comprehensive suite for businesses."

While Google expects Apps Premier to resonate across the board, from smaller to larger organizations, Smith speculated that small and medium businesses (SMBs) would be more likely to convert entirely to Google Apps. "Larger organizations, by virtue of how they adopt technology, might take an incremental approach," either starting adoption with a group of users within the organization, or with a portion of the functionality -- for example, trying out calendaring first and moving to spreadsheets later.

For both immediate, complete conversion scenarios as well as the ones that will be done in stages, partners will come into play, since customers will want to have some assistance in converting over, Smith said.

Apps Premier launched with about 10 partners already on board. The group is split pretty evenly between product/technology partners and service partners. The product/technology crowd will be providing solutions such as e-mail gateways, single sign-on layers or connectors, which is where the APIs come in. "One of (the APIs) is a single sign-on integration point, which will allow third-party developers to build on top of the platform." This week Sxip Identity of Vancouver announced the launch of Sxip Access, an identity and access management solution, for Google Apps.

Technology partners will also have the opportunity to help customers stage pilots and keep watch over migrations. Services partners, on the other hand, will offer things like quick-start packages and migration plans, Smith added.

The launch of Apps Premier will mean Google will be looking to recruit additional partners, noted Smith. "Over time as the product becomes adopted and people come up with interesting requirements or solutions, we will need additional partners on the technology and services side and I think our plan will be to scale with customers' needs."

Despite speculations that Apps Premier is intended to compete directly with Microsoft Office, Smith insisted that Google is playing nice. "I don't know if we see it so much as competition as much as we think that we are providing what business end users need. Although it might seem threatening or competitive to others out there, we see a lot of it as complementary," he said. Some organizations may see partial adoption, with, for example, full-time workers continuing to use existing technologies and seasonal or contract workers switching over to Google Apps.

Although the ideal scenario for people sharing documents would be to all use the same platform, Google Apps are interoperable with other document forms, Smith noted. For example, "If you receive an e-mail with an Excel document attached to it, you can import it into Google Apps and turn it into a collaborative document." When finished with the document, the user can save it back into Excel format, he said.

"The idea is not to be exclusive, but to make it as interoperable as possible and make the user experience as seamless as possible."