Check it out – a slick new way to privately share files on the web while staying out of Google’s reach:

www.drop.io

My inner-geek shining through!

MRC

Google is making a play for the channel with their new reseller program, you can find details on it here.You can also listen to good podcast interview with Joe Panettieri over at MSP Mentor and Stephen Cho, director of Google Apps Channels here.

In my opinion Google is making a smart play going after the channel, you and me, because we have the relationship with the client, we are already the trusted adviser.

We have already set many small clients up with Gmail for business and we are in the midst of rolling our our new company intranet through Google sites. As we do these things we have been thinking all along how to create packages that makes sense to the small business owner and are easy to purchase from us. With the new channel program it makes it that much easier for us to create and sell those packages while putting health margins on things, at least that is what we are thinking as we begin to dig into the details.

I would suggest we all should be figuring out these packages because if your clients have not already started asking about Google Docs, Google Sites, Gmail for business and other Google programs they soon will be. I know I would much rather have a solution to offer them then be left trying to figure out the answer to the question.

Let me know your thoughts on the program and how you all have dealt with client requests to date.

JC

So simple yet so cool, Google now allows you to list out locations and in their online spreadsheet and a gadget then places them on a map.

Now I don’t usually get caught up in “cool” technology. I am a big believer in letting the other guy work the bugs out and adopting one step behind the cutting edge – less likely to get cut that way. But as Google takes steps to make their online applications useful to the small businesses around the world I think they hit on something that is powerful for you and me.

We recently started to map out our clients in a Google spreadsheet and it is powerful to see the way they layout around the country or around a particular region. Not only is this cool but it helps our dispatcher as we direct partners around a region to our clients sites to perform work. If implemented properly we should be able to create efficiencies that allow us to drive billable utilization rates beyond the industry norm.

What are you using to track your techs, their routes, their idol time, etc, to drive your utilization rates up? I know it makes sense to create compensation plans that reward utilzation rates, but what are you doing to help your engineers reach these goals?

One of the things we are always working on with our partners around the country is how to make their business and in turn our business more profitable. And I truly believe that tracking traffic patters, knowing locations as you direct a tech from one client to another, having minimums for on-site visits, and empowering your people make this possiable.

Anyway, I am starting to veer off into another subject so check out the Google blog post on their feature and let me know your thoughts:

http://googledocs.blogspot.com/2008/06/featured-gadget-map-it-in-your.html

JC

The outage that affected individual accounts and enterprise Google account holders alike has the masses talking about this being an indication that Google is not reliable enough to continue its push into the enterprise. HA! If every time my exchange server went down in the last five years the masses wrote about why Microsoft  would never make it in the enterprise world we would be sick of hearing it.

With Google apps being used by companies all over the world (~500,000) and in pilot phases with large organizations (Proctor & Gamble) I would say that Google’s steady move into the enterprise world is safe despite the brief outage.

There are other signs that Google is charging straight ahead when you look at the training programs popping up around Google – take a look at Bluewolf’s recent announcement of a classroom certification program for administrators and users of Google applications here.

Let’s also not forget that Google and Salesforce.com recently announce the integration that allows users to open Google applications from Salesforce, this used to be Microsoft office domain beyond a shadow of a doubt.

So with all of this said I would suggest to you that Google will continue its methodical gentle push into enterprises of all sizes until they hit a tipping point and become synonymous with the enterprise.

JC

As we officially talked about using Google sites / docs for collaboration between employees in four different states today it got me to thinking about how Google is pushing into the enterprise.

No longer is Google to be thought as of a solution for the home user or sub 10 person office. There are solutions providers cropping up around the world focused on integrating Google into your customer’s organization.

 Value propositions such as this can be easily found and I have to admit it sounds pretty attractive: “Focus on the integration of Google Apps Premier Edition™ within existing environments to extend the user population and improve, while simplifying, collaboration.”

You can find a list of Google enterprise partners listed here, take note of the different value propositions being offered.

I suspect that Google will make some changes to their channel program to further foster you and I creating services such as these around their offerings for our clients, if you know of any changes coming certainly share them with us.

I know I for one am already thinking about how to wrap service and support around Google’s enterprise offerings as well as thinking about how they can solve the problems our organization faces.

JC