Google to roll out reseller programme for Apps

Google on Thursday is expected to launch a new authorised reseller programme 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, for example, localised 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 programme with 50 companies since last summer. On Thursday it is open to anyone, and will be available everywhere in the world. As an added bonus, resellers in the US get a 20 percent discount on the $50 (£35) per-user, per-year price tag.

As part of the deal, resellers get full control over customer billing and account management. Google is expecting this to be a big help in moving medium- to large-size companies over to the Google Apps platform. Rishi Chandra, senior product manager for Google Apps, told ZDNet UK's sister site, CNET News.com, 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 programme, Google expects partners to deliver that while being able to customise the platform for each customer's needs.

Paul Slakey, Google's director of enterprise channels, hopes the new programme 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 side effect of this new programme is that Google will be placing a cap on the maximum users one can have in the Standard edition of Google apps. As of Thursday morning, 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.