Google Bonding With ISPs

On Friday of last week, Google announced that they would now begin offering their Google Apps for Your Domain to ISPs, making the popular web apps available to, potentially, thousands of ISP subscribers as ISP-branded services. Hunter Middleton, Google Apps product manager, stated "Today, we're excited to take another step in that direction by releasing a version of Google Apps specifically designed for ISPs, portals, and other service providers, whether you have a few thousand subscribers or over a million." Deemed "Google Apps Partner Edition", Google states the service can:

• Decrease ISP operating costs
• Provide a better user experience for subscribers
• Increase the amount of email storage for subscribers
• Offer customers the very latest innovation from Google, on your domain

With the Partner Edition, small ISPs can operate with low overhead, as they would no longer incur the expense of having to maintain their own email servers. Additionally, the service can be branded with the ISP's domain info and logo. Although low-cost, the service will not be free to partners, with fees most likely to be based on number of subscribers. This is one area that Google had not yet ventured into, even though Yahoo and MSN both have numerous partners in this arena already. I would have loved to have Google as a choice when I signed up for FIOS; as it was, I only had Verizon Yahoo or Verizon MSN. (via Ars Technica)

Comments

[Matt White]

I'd rather they fix the bugs with the existing GAFYD before pushing it out even further. Stuff like the Mobile Gmail for phones other than a Blackberry, or Mail migration from other platforms is what's holding me back from rolling this out on a larger scale at the moment.

Matt