Google Apps and Email for ISP's

Google Launches Google Apps Reseller Program

Want to sell SAAS and hosted email without the servers and maintenance? Google Apps for ISP's. According to CRN,

"Google partners will receive $10 per year on a $50 per-user, per-year subscription fee, and they'll also maintain the billing relationship with the customer and pre-pay Google in advance for each one-year subscription. Partners will also be able to add their own services and bill customers on a monthly, quarterly or annual basis."

Forrester did a cost analysis on hosted email (with an emphasis on Google Apps) titled Should Your Email Live In The Cloud? A Comparative Cost Analysis. Summary of the $379 report is that "Cloud-Based Email Is Often Cheaper Than On-Premise Email". {Highlights of the report are here or here].

If you are paying for Postini (or other non-Google owned anti-spam service), that payment goes away. Let's not forget the servers, power, maintenance, updates, and back-ups. (What?! You aren't archiving and backing up email? But many government regs require it for people in finance, banking, and public companies.) It can add up.

IKANO is working with ISP's that want to move to Google Apps, since Google doesn't have the resources (or desire) to work with small to medium ISP's directly. As many of you are aware, I moderated a panel at ISPCON in San Jose in November with Stephen Cho, Director of Product Management, Google Apps and Partner Products and with Doug Pollei, VP of internet strategy and corporate development for IKANO. I have spoken with both since and IKANO has enlisted my services to spread the message about IKANO and Google to ISP's. There will be a conference call in Feb. to provide details. Contact me for information.