Having secured software distribution deals with the likes of Dell, Google has now struck a hardware distribution agreement.
Ingram Micro will distribute the Google Search Appliance and Google Mini enterprise search boxes around the globe.
San Francisco — Google Inc. has chosen Ingram Micro Inc., the world’s largest technology wholesaler, to distribute Google’s enterprise search boxes — the Google Search Appliance and Google Mini — around the globe, the companies said on Wednesday.
The deal, which thrusts the consumer-oriented Google into the established world of corporate enterprise sales — where rival Microsoft Corp. is a major player — promises to substantially widen distribution for Google’s hardware.
Google said it partnered with Ingram to boost “key competencies” in sales, reseller credit, marketing, technical support and logistics in order to reach target markets.
"Just as you think of Google as a company that is able to deliver technology on a massive scale the same holds true of our desire to do the same on the enterprise side," said Rodrigo Vaca, Google’s enterprise product marketing manager.
It turns out that the enterprise business is different. We are dealing with a hardware-based product that we need to distribute offline and we need to convince customers to buy the product. Vaca said. “That is why we decided to go the channel route.”
“We want to reach new markets. We want to reach new customers. And we are concerned about doing that through ways that can scale, through ways that are efficient both for us and our customers.”
Google Mini and the Google Search Appliance are essentially Google’s version of search-in-a-box, designed to discover and retrieve information stored on a corporate Internet, Web server, file server, content management system and other locations.
The Google Mini is designed for Web site search and for small to medium-sized businesses and Google Search Appliance is intended for mid-market and other data and e-file intense organizations such as legal firms, finance companies and medical offices.
Google had previously sold its hardware directly through its Web site and a handful of local distributors to learn from customers what worked best, Vaca said. But as these products have matured, Google needs less oversight over sales.
In June, Google surpassed 9,000 corporate or government customers for its two hard products, known as the Google Search Appliance and the Google Mini. That is up from 7,000 customers in March, and up from around 2,000 customers in late 2005.
By partnering with Ingram Micro, we can keep focused on building great products that customers want to buy, said Vaca. “And we rely on Ingram and on their core strength to help us sell and distribute our product through their distribution network.”
Ingram, of Santa Ana, California, provides supply warehouses and logistical, technical and marketing support for corporate resellers and big retailers. In the first quarter, it sold $8.25 billion worth of electronic gadgets and software, half of it in North American and the rest internationally.
Last week, Google said that it has chosen Dell as a manufacturing partner for its search hardware.
The Ingram alliance is about more than distribution, explained Vaca. “We are also engaging them in other ways, such as reseller recruitment, reseller marketing, and reseller enablement, to make sure that the channel is ready to sell our products,” he said.
Google does not disclose actual sales volumes of its hardware products, which remain a tiny sliver — perhaps 1 percent to 2 percent of its $10.6 billion in 2006 revenue. Virtually all the rest derives from advertising tied to its Web search services.
The Google hardware products are initially available to Ingram Micro’s network of technical consulting resellers in the United States, with a phased expansion to other regions of the world planned during the course of 2007, Google said.
- The Google Mini is a pizza box-sized data storage device with a starting price of around $2,000 with a capacity of up to 50,000 documents.
- The Google Search Appliance price starts at about $30,000 to store 500,000 documents.
- More powerful versions that can search up to 30 million documents come in a refrigerator-sized frame. All are designed to be installed at customer offices.
Google hopes Ingram will help it reach new mid-market and enterprise customers, particularly among government and education customers outside the United States.