Google Reseller Program: New Premier Tier Serves Top Partners

By samdizzy

Google resellers have a new goal to pursue. Indeed, the Google Reseller Program — spanning 3,000 partners worldwide — now has includes the Google Premier Resellers tier. And Google is starting to segment its reseller program to help customers find partners that serve specific market Google announced the new tier in a June 8 blog post. Still, the new Google Premier Reseller partner program tier also introduces a few questions.

Talkin’ Cloud certainly has some initial perspectives to share. But there’s a deeper story unfolding at Google. Chatter close to the company suggests that Google is trying to assist customers with consulting and break-fix services. Moreover, Google on June 15 appears set to launch Google Chromebooks for Business — which could give VARs and MSPs some new motivations to master hardware as a service (HaaS) coupled with SaaS and cloud computing.

Just the Facts

But let’s start with the story at hand: The new Google Premier Reseller tier. The Google partner program has four areas of focus:

Talkin’ Cloud focuses most of its Google coverage on the Google Apps Reseller Program, since that’s clearly defined for traditional VARs and MSPs getting into the cloud market. But the new Google Premier Reseller tier covers all four partner program areas. According to Google’s blog entry:

Lingering Questions

The new Google Premier Reseller tier prompts a few questions from Talkin’ Cloud:

I hope to catch up with Google SMB Channel Lead Jeff Ragusa at the Schnizzfest conference this evening in Philadelphia. (Roughly 200 MSPs are set to attend.)  I also have submitted some questions to Google PR for potential comment.

The Story Doesn’t End There

Meanwhile, several Talkin’ Cloud readers suggest that Google is preparing to launch some sort of consulting arm or consulting business to further assist enterprises with Google Apps. There could also be some break-fix components to the Google consulting service.

Talkin’ Cloud is digging for information. We expect to offer readers an update soon.

Follow Talkin’ Cloud via RSS, Facebook and Twitter. Sign up for Talkin’ Cloud’s Weekly Newsletter, Webcasts and Resource Center. Read our editorial disclosures here.