Earlier today, Google announced it would open yet another competition front with software giant Microsoft by offering a reseller program for its office application suite. Thanks to the new program, businesses who would like to use Gmail, Google Docs and other productivity software developed by the Mountain View-based search giant will be able to sign up through any qualified value added reseller that chooses to carry such products.

Starting from the end of March, third-party authorized resellers will be able to sell, customize and offer support for the online word processing, spreadsheet, email and calendar software among others. Resellers will be given the service at a 20% price reduction, or $40 per user per year instead of the normal $50; anything the reseller charges above that level will be profit.

According to Google, the program had been in testing phase for the last six months and is already counting over 50 partners. Google spokesmen said that over 1 million businesses (and about 10 million users) already are Google Apps user, with 3,000 new businesses signing up every day: the largest business so far, Genentech, has 20,000 employees using the Google software suite.

The use of Google Apps is free for those who are willing to cope with ads on the web pages, limited customer service and low storage limits; the greatest part of the 10 million users work with the free version of the software, but Google says that hundreds of thousands of "premier users" are already paying for the service, and the number is hopefully going to increase once the reseller program goes live.

The Google Apps suite is in many ways similar to Microsoft's Office package or the Outlook/Exchange Server aimed at corporate customers, except Google's interface is entirely Web-based, relying on the so-called "cloud computing" architecture. Back in October, Microsoft said it will also add Web-based functionality for Office applications, but no such product has been announced so far.

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Google Apps suite was launched in February 2007 and, so far, its business penetration has not been too successful. According to Gartner Research, Google only has around 200,000 Premium customers and the move to work with third parties is necessary if the company wants to have a real chance to compete with Microsoft Office or IBM's free and open source OpenOffice.org.

Microsoft, currently an indiscussed leader in corporate software, sells in fact over 95 percent of its products through a network of third party resellers counting over 400 thousands members and, according to Gartner Research, will spend around $3 billion to manage those sales alone.

When put in this perspective, Google's efforts seem little more than a drop in the ocean; however, the reseller program is certainly a good move for the company and, given the cheaper per-license price of the Google Apps suite when compared to its Microsoft counterpart, Google's chances could be higher than many expect.

Stephen Cho, director of Google Apps Channels, said Google plans to partner with resellers of any size, hoping the 20 percent discount offering to US-based resellers will serve as an encouragement. According to Cho, similar discounts will be offered in other countries as well in the near future.

According to a recent Google press release, the program will provide resellers with a portal with business and technical information and an online discussion group, sales/technical training and marketing materials, a REST-based application programming interface for directory synchronization, and tools for setting up business customers and management.

There is however a bad news for "standard" (non-premium) Google App users, in that the company has decided to cap the number of users an organization can have on the Standard, advertisement-funded version to 50 in order to differentiate more the two versions. The limit, however, doesn't apply to existing Standard users.

Further information on the Google Apps reseller program, including info on how to apply for the program, can be found at this address.