Ten times more applications for Google Apps customers
As customers begin to recognize large productivity gains with Gmail, Google Docs and the rest of Google Apps, they frequently ask when they'll be able to use services like Google Voice, Reader, Blogger and AdWords with their Google Apps accounts.
Context & Ripple Effects
This announcement closes out a request Google has heard since at least December 2007, when customers compiled a wish list of consumer services they wanted inside their Apps accounts. The company spent 2010 building toward it: the Google Apps Marketplace opened in March, and by September Google was testing full-featured Apps accounts internally.
The move matters because Apps had been positioned mainly as Gmail, Docs and Calendar for organizations, while properties like Voice, Reader, Blogger and AdWords lived on separate personal logins. Unifying them answers the adoption objection raised in Business Week's May 2009 piece asking what was holding Google Apps back.
First-order effects
- Google Apps administrators and users can now reach ten times more applications — including Voice, Reader, Blogger and AdWords — under a single organizational login instead of maintaining separate personal accounts.
Second-order effects
- A richer first-party app roster strengthens the Apps pitch against incumbent office suites, and makes the Marketplace's third-party listings more valuable since buyers can run a fuller workload on one platform.
Third-order effects
- If Google keeps folding consumer services into Apps accounts, the boundary between its consumer identity system and its enterprise offering erodes — pushing workplace software toward one-account platforms rather than per-product logins.
The trend: Google Apps is expanding from an email-and-docs bundle into the umbrella account for all of Google's services, with customer demand accumulated since 2007 setting the roadmap.