Google Apps Marketplace Gets SAP StreamWork

Add SAP to the list of SaaS vendors supporting the Google Apps Marketplace, as the IT giant puts its StreamWork information unification solution up for purchase, offering Google administrators a way to integrate the two offerings. But users wouldn’t take advantage of Google Wave when it was free — how does SAP’s very similar, paid StreamWork differ? Here’s the scoop.

Let’s back up. Google Wave was among the highest-profile technology flops in existence, and there weren’t many who sprang to its defense when Google pulled the plug earlier this year. Like Novell Pulse, SAP StreamWork is compatible with the Google Wave protocol, but takes an enterprise approach to the concept, adding things like document management and pro-con tables to the formula.

In his guest entry at the Google Enterprise Blog, David Meyer, senior vice president for On-Demand, Productivity and Sustainability Solutions at SAP, explains that the real value of adding StreamWork to the Google Apps Marketplace is that the two offerings now work seamlessly thanks to OpenID – just navigate to StreamWork from Google’s navigation bar and you’re in business. It also means things like documents, e-mail, and calendaring in StreamWork will be handled by the familiar Google Docs, Gmail, and Google Calendar offerings.

The basic edition is free for administrators of Google Apps domains. But the professional edition, which carries the full range of features and a larger storage space, starts at $9/month. But as I noted, Wave didn’t catch on when Google test-ran it for free. Is there any buzz around SAP StreamWork or is it DOA?

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