Mountain View, California — In a move that will bring Google in closer competition to Microsoft’s Azure platform, according to the Wall Street Journal (WSJ) reports, Google Inc., as early as March is intending to open a new Apps Store that will integrate its Web services for online businesses collaboration and communication hosted suite.
According to reports the new Google store would enable customers to acquire the software from its store with products from third-party developers available as add-ons to Google’s office productivity software suite, according to the Journal, whose article was based on unidentified sources.
A Google spokeswoman contacted via e-mail refused to comment specifically on the Journal article, but she pointed out that Google already offers what it calls a Solutions Marketplace, a site where it showcases applications and professional services from third-party developers that complement Google Apps and a variety of add-ons, tools and other Google enterprise products.
The new store will enable Gmail and Google Docs users to acquire add-ons, said the person, who agreed to speak on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the project.
“The Google Solutions Marketplace makes it easy for our customers to connect with an ecosystem of products and professional services,” the company said in a statement. “We are constantly working with our partners to deliver more solutions to businesses, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”
The service does not include e-commerce potentialities that mean the customers interested in purchasing services and products will have to contact the vendors via their sites or call them on phone.
There is a variety of applications already featured on Google’s Apps Store that consists of a calendar function, Gmail and software to create and edit spreadsheets, text documents and presentations.
Google Apps is available in various versions; one of them is the sophisticated Apps Premier costing US$50 per user per year and targets medium and large businesses.
However, this person with knowledge of the matter said the store was mostly meant to provider better integration with Google’s partners and make it easier for users to buy add-ons and services.
Nevertheless, most of the Apps Store customers are either individual buyers or small scale businesses using the free Standard version. Because of this, the company has not managed to put a dent in Microsoft’s service business.
Google’s plans for the store were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
Google said it had recently included various paying Apps customers, including 20,000 users at Motorola, 15,000 at Jaguar Land Rover and 30,000 in the city government of Los Angeles.
In what is appearing as the new avenue for the software business, software developers would share revenues with Google in much the same way as Apple would share 70pc of revenue with software developers who make apps to sell on the iTunes Apps Store.