Google CEO and Channel Partners: On the Same Page?
When Google shifted the CEO crown from Eric Schmidt to Larry Page in 2011, The VAR Guy wondered: Does Larry Page value channel partners — or would Google ultimately shift more and more of its cloud services to a direct sales model. Fast forward to the present and some answers are starting to emerge.
First, a little background: Numerous high-tech companies are starting 2012 with new or recently named CEOs in place. The recent CEO roster changes include AMD (Rory Read), Apple (Tim Cook), Hewlett-Packard (Meg Whitman), IBM (Virginia Rometty) and Google, just to name a few. The VAR Guy is looking at each company — one by one — over the next few days. Today’s stop: Google and Larry Page.
The vast majority of Google’s revenues still come from search advertising. Talkin’ Cloud, The VAR Guy’s sister site, estimates that Google Apps generates only about $185 million in annual revenues. But that figure overlooks additional revenue opportunities for Google’s channel partners — many of whom build their own apps or provide integration and consulting services to optimize Google Apps deployments.
The Google Apps partner program certainly has its fans. True believers include Excel Micro, the largest authorized distributor of Google message security and compliance solutions. Michael Amadio, director of marketing at Excel Micro, cheered when Page was promoted back into the CEO post.
By December 2011, Jeff Ragusa, the Google Apps SMB Channel Lead, described how Google would accelerate its channel partner engagements in 2012.
Google Chromebooks and Google Android
So far so good. But Google’s channel strategy could also extend beyond Google Apps. Most recently, Google has been lining up resellers to support Google Chromebooks — those cloud-centric netbooks promoted by Acer and Samsung. During the holidays, Chromebooks apparently were in short supply.
Also, it’s a safe bet many VARs and MSPs will need to master Google Android as they begin to introduce mobile device management (MDM) services for customers’ tablets and smartphones.
But back to the central question from The VAR Guy: Is Google CEO Larry Page committed to channel partners? The VAR Guy’s answer: Page certainly doesn’t spend a lot of time talking about the channel. But his lieutenants — folks like Ragusa and Google VP of Enterprise Amit Singh — have offered steady updates to Google’s growing channel partner base.
Admittedly, Google has its share of doubters in the channel. Some partners worry Google will take business direct. Other partners don’t think they can make a living reselling low-priced Google Apps.
Still, the overall trend is clear: Google’s partner ranks are swelling. And Page has showed no signs of reversing course since being named CEO.
You and others always fail to mention what Postini brings to the table. If you are including Postini, also an Apps product, your estimate is way off base as far as a true package offering GApps and Postini bring to the table.
Do some real reporting on Postini and you may be quite surprised. Go back and look at the financials after Google purchased Postini in October 2007. Google bought Postini for a reason. As of the last reporting in 2008, Postini held some 45% of the US Fortune 1000 as clients.
In addition to your assumption that Google will bring in all sales in-house, and then dump the sales channel is plain ignorance on this subject.
Get-more-facts: The VAR Guy appreciates your note but our resident blogger never said Google will bring sales in-house. Instead, The VAR Guy said some partners fear that will happen.
On the Postini front: You’re right. The VAR Guy should have mentioned Postini, which continues to grow. You’ll find recent Postini coverage on The VAR Guy’s sister site, TalkinCloud, here.
-TVG
Then name them and have them say directly why. For those partners, they do not understand the full value of what they can do offering GApps and Postini services. There are so many add-on services they can offer, either directly or collaborating with others that have the needed expertise to manage the new client. Google does it with partners already, why can’t they do the same?
Google is not set up or can they dedicate enough resources to white glove a new client, especially the larger ones, even more so for smaller clients. Google engineers may build the products, however it is in high regards that MSP/ISV’s of Google can do a much better job of integration and migration than Google can directly.
This same issue occured when Google bought Postini and some resellers did not like the new organization and that Google was going to zap their margins. They could not have been more wrong, as was reported by this same industry journal. I can guarantee you; many wish they had not jumped ship.
Google got a bargain when they bought Postini and they know it, however they were slow to capitalize on it. They finally realized that Postini could be a driving factor with current Postini clients moving over to GApps. The base of clients Google had from Postini’s direct and reseller clients was substantial.
Another factor was that by developing a reseller program with GApps, notwithstanding the rough startup, the existing client base of Postini resellers could gain even more business with existing clients. The sales channel did the lion’s share of Postini’s business at the time of the sale to Google.
We are a long standing direct partner of Postini and wanted to offer GApps from day one of ordering our own GApps account in July 2007. However, it would be at least another 2+ years before they had a program and one we could work with. Nonetheless, that did not stop us from offereing Postini services to GApps clients.
What Google has been able to do in a short period; could not have been accomplished without the help of the sales channel. I will say to the worried resellers, get over it and learn from those embracing the product Google has now, as it is only going to get better and gain even greater market share.
Microsoft could not have done what they have done without a sales channel; I beg them to say differently.