Google reseller plan may hit Microsoft where it hurts

Google Apps has been far from a raging success, and has yet to make any serious inroads against Microsoft Office. But a new Google partnership with resellers may change all that. Don't expect immediate results, but in several years, Google Apps may start to see some success.

Reuters reports that starting at the end of March, authorized resellers "will be able to sell, customize and support premium versions of Google Apps."

Up until now, Google has sold directly to businesses itself, and not using a sales force, but instead over the Web. The results have been less than stellar --- Gartner Research estimates Google only has approximately 200,000 Google Apps Premier customers.

Under the new Google plan, resellers can buy the Premier edition at a 20 percent discount, and can "keep the recurring revenue for the lifetime of their customer relationship." That's a significant incentive.

Still, Google has a long way to go, because of Microsoft's relationship with resellers Reuters reports:

Microsoft, which is the world's largest software company, sells more than 95 percent of its software through more than 440,000 third party resellers, according to Gartner Research, and intends to spend around $3 billion on managing those sales channels in 2009.

The upshot? Don't expect Google Apps to get significant market share any time soon. But over several years, with this new strategy, that may well change.