Google has made it into our everyday lingo, just like Kleenex or Jello. But while Google has strong brand recognition, it’s still typically recognized as a consumer technology.
And this may be the reason behind its partnership with Ingram Micro, which will distribute Google’s hardware search appliance boxes to the enterprise market.
These boxes aren’t exactly new. And Google isn’t the only player in the enterprise search market. But there seems to be a lack of awareness of enterprise tools that search across intranets, file servers and business applications – and it could be a challenge to educate the market, even with the help of a global distributor.
This is because it depends on the buy-in of Ingram’s resellers. These boxes have a high price tag, which suggests decent margins. But will those resellers be able to convince their customers to spend that kind of cash?
The Google Mini is aimed at the SMB market and costs US$1,995 for 50,000 documents in its searchable index (and includes one year of support). The Google Search Appliance is aimed at larger enterprises and starts at US$30,000 for a 500,000-document search capacity (the higher the search capacity, the higher the price tag).
When Google made the announcement last month, Rodrigo Vaca, channel marketing manager for Google Enterprise, said on his blog that the company had passed the 9,000 mark for enterprise buyers of the Google Search Appliance and Google Mini. “We want to reach out even farther, which is why we’re embarking on a partnership with Ingram Micro, one of the largest global distributors of technology products in the world,” he wrote, adding that Ingram has reseller relationships that can deliver this on a larger scale than Google could do on its own.
Ingram, for its part, will provide its expertise in reseller credit, marketing, technical support and logistics. Keep in mind, however, that Google will continue direct sales.
Google is a recognized brand, but that doesn’t mean the company won’t have to overcome a few obstacles in its quest to dominate the enterprise search market. These types of tools aren’t being used much by SMBs, so resellers will have to convince them to drop a lot of cash on something they associate with a free consumer technology. In this case, Google’s brand recognition could backfire. So not all resellers see this as an easy sell.
Where opportunities may lie, however, are in document-centric enterprises, such as law firms or government organizations (the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, for example, is using Google for enterprise search). For these types of organizations, resellers may be able to offer customization and integration that Google can’t do on its own.
So far, the two products are available to Ingram Micro solution providers in the U.S., with plans to roll them out to other regions later this year.
Google has no track record with the channel, so it may have to rely heavily on Ingram to shape its channel relations. But whether Ingram’s clout will be enough to push an expensive box out into a skeptical market is yet to be seen.
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