Google Apps Resellers: Time to Become Software Developers?
Here’s a little bit of Google chatter ahead of next week’s Google I/O developer conference: Google Apps reseller Cloud Sherpas isn’t merely a cloud integrator. The company also is a software developer that promotes its own SherpaTools administration application. The Cloud Sherpas strategy highlights how resellers and solutions providers are trying to generate SaaS application revenue in the cloud. Here are details.
SherpaTools was one of the “original 50” in the Google Apps Marketplace, and has been offering its directory and user setting policy management functionality for free to any Google Apps domain during an extended beta. But it sounds like the paid version is on the way…
As part of a product enhancement, SherpaTools now allows you to delegate administration access to other IT staff. In other words, you can give employees the ability to change an end user’s password without giving them the keys to the kingdom. The other key new feature, Cloud Sherpas says, is the ability to archive and access a terminated employee’s data by simply rolling it up into a manager or executive’s account.
Georgia-based Cloud Sherpas says even the premium version of SherpaTools will continue to be free to anyone who purchases their Google Apps licenses directly from them.
We’re expecting to hear more about products like this as we get closer to Google I/O. While Google itself has been enhancing its channel play, Cloud Sherpas and companies like it seem to be connecting the dots between the reseller community and the SaaS industry.
Is Cloud Sherpas a cloud integrator or a software developer? The answer is both.
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The GA Marketplace and GA as a platform are the keys to the kingdom for Google. When new businesses can hit a few buttons and have basic office, CRM, human resources, and accounting all working/integrated and at a reasonable price, scalable as the company grows and without a huge investment up front, the market will start to shift.
I know that GA can’t compete with MS Office/Sharepoint on many levels, but start-ups need an easy … start-up (sorry). If the platform is good enough to get the business off the ground and doesn’t require VC financing just to get the software and consultants to integrate it, many new businesses will go for GA. There’s a bonus that many of the integrated apps in the GA Marketplace are free for up to 5/10/20 users, meaning there’s an even lower cost for very small businesses.
Daeng Bo: It’s hard for The VAR Guy to argue with your logic, especially since The VAR Guy himself mixes and matches Office with Google Apps…