Google Apps Small Business Adoption Is On Fire, Google Says

Written by samdizzy
April 13, 2012

Google Apps is catching on with enterprise customers, and Google Apps adoption among small businesses has nearly doubled in the past six months. Those anecdotes surfaced yesterday during a Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) 1Q 2012 earnings call with financial analysts. The Google Apps mentions were brief but strategic — confirming that Google’s executive team continues to focus on the SaaS market and competition with Microsoft Office 365.

According to Nikesh Arora, senior VP and chief business officer:

“Our Enterprise business also saw excellent progress as large organizations and small businesses continue to see the value of Google Apps as a cost-effective and feature-rich productivity suite. Some of our top customers to go Google in Q1 include global pharmaceutical company Roche, more than 90,000 users; the State of Colorado, which announced they intend to move 26,000 employees and users to Google; also the University of Pennsylvania and Rome have gone Google. Not only that, small business adoption of Google Apps is on fire, with SMB signups almost doubling in the past 6 months. So we’re happy with the business and we’re happy with the way Enterprise continues to progress.”

Arora’s statement arrive at a key time for Google Apps and its cloud channel partners.

Earlier this week, The Wall Street Journal speculated that Google will de-emphasize Google Apps in order to focus more on social media and search. Google does not disclose actual revenues from Google Apps, and the cloud suite only costs $50 per user per year — while paid search continues to drive most Google revenues. Plus, some Google Apps Marketplace members say they are still waiting on more information from Google about the upcoming Google I/O conference (June 27-29, San Francisco).

Google Apps Commitment Continues

Still, anecdotal evidence suggests Google continues to invest heavily in Google Apps and its associated Google Apps Authorized Reseller partner program. The search giant is hosting a partner road show over the next few weeks, and working with MSPexcellence to promote cloud training to VARs and resellers.

Meanwhile, Wall Street was somewhat disappointed with Google’s overall 1Q 2012 earnings results. Google shares are down about 2.4 percent today, despite the fact that 1Q 2012 revenues rose 24 percent –exceeding $10 billion.