Google's Un-Appy Issue

Yesterday, Google got serious about pushing Google Apps, its suite of cloud-based office software, to businesses around the country. The search giant has announced a new program to recruit "resellers," or independent salespeople who will buy Apps at a discount, sell it to small businesses they cultivate, and pocket the difference. Resellers will have to provide some limited customer service to help businesses work out the bugs, but other than that, it's pretty straightforward.

What does this mean? Probably that the Apps suite hasn't made a serious dent in Microsoft Office's dominance of the business software market, and Google needs to get more aggressive in pushing its product. ZDNet's Larry Dignan agrees. "The fact that Google needs resellers indicates that the search giant hasn't garnered the paying customers it wanted," he writes. "For all the talk about Google Apps—1 million business users per Google—it's unclear whether Apps is an experiment or whole hog replacement for Office."