Resellers Gain Google Drive, Google Apps Flexible Billing

Google has announced a flexible billing offer for Google Apps Authorized Resellers, and Google Drive also is available now via Google’s partner program. Those channel-centric moves should further silence critics who recently suggested that Google might deemphasize Google Apps in the future.

Ravi Byakod, technical lead, Google Apps, mentioned in Google+ post:

“Monthly post-pay billing is now available to resellers in the Google Apps Reseller program, providing flexibility in payment and cash flow to both resellers and their Google Apps customers.”

Byakod mentioned that resellers can now purchase Google Apps with either annual or month-to-month terms. Also, Google Apps now offers post-pay billing, “which means that resellers will be invoiced monthly and only for the previous month’s commitment regardless of payment terms.”

Those updated terms are only available in North America, though it sounds like Google plans to support additional regions soon.

Separately, Google as expected announced that Google Apps Authorized Resellers can now offer Google Drive to their customers. The move comes as Google attempts to compete with Microsoft Skydrive, Box and Dropbox.

The Google partner program updates come a few weeks after The Wall Street Journal suggested that Google may someday deemphasize Google Apps in order to focus on search and social media. But Google and the Google Apps partner ecosystem have made multiple moves in recent weeks that suggest the Google Apps ecosystem remains healthy and growing.