While best known for the Web search engine that has become so prevalent that its name has become a verb, Google is more than just search and the company’s channel marketing manager, Rodrigo Vaca, has been leading Google’s embrace of the reseller and partner channels in 2007.
SMB and enterprise-class search appliances, which index documents on a corporate Intranet for easy search by a client’s internal employees, are a growing business area for Google. In July, Google inked a global reseller agreement for global distribution for the search appliances with Ingram Micro.
The agreement will begin in the U.S., with other geographies to follow, focusing initially on the SMB market with the Google Search Appliance and Google Mini. Direct distribution by Google will also continue, and the agreement with Ingram is not exclusive.
“This is a large operation for Ingram and us, and we are going to take our time to do this right,” said Vaca. “We are committed to working with them.”
The enterprise push by Google was also furthered by the release of migration tools designed to help companies move from their existing mail systems to the online suite Google Apps.
With the launch of Google Apps Premium Edition, as well as the previously available API for third party developers, Google is encouraging partners to join its Enterprise Developer Program to customize the suite for corporate clients.
Google also sees developer opportunity around its Google Talk IM software, which a customer might want to link to a unified communications (UC) suite. Avaya is already offering a UC-Google Talk integration, and Vancouver’s Sxip Identity sees opportunity for its Sxip Access product to handle identity management, single sign-on and user access management with Google Apps.