Interview: How to sell Google and Microsoft together

After 12 years as a Microsoft partner, national integrator SMS Technology started selling Google Apps alongside Microsoft Business Productivity Online Suite.

CRN spoke to Paul Cooper, director of emerging solutions, and Gerard Roberts, national cloud manager, at SMS Technology, about life as a Google Apps partner and what reception the products have had with enterprise and government customers.

CRN: What is Google like to work with? Do you compete often with its direct sales team?

Paul Cooper: Our target marketplace is organisations with several thousand people and above. We don't compete in the small business or individual Google Apps marketplace, which has a huge amount of other channels and direct selling by Google.

Because we are more selected with the higher clients, we find we have very good responsiveness from Google. Where they are stretched is responding to a whole lot of requests to very small clients.

Gerard Roberts: Google Enterprise is a very small organisation and they rely on their partners to do the implementation and services work around that.

Their approach to the market is not a direct approach, it's very much partner-driven, but the exception there is for large clients that they see as a strategic opportunity. We do pitch Google Apps into smaller organisations but only when we are taking on a larger chunk of managed services and Google Apps is one component.

On it's own, we wouldn't consider engaging with a client that had less than a couple of thousand seats, it's not cost effective for us.

CRN: Are you replacing Microsoft Office and Exchange installations in your enterprise customers with Google Apps?

Roberts: Where we are seeing the most interest are from companies that don't have Microsoft. Some Microsoft customers are moving to Google Apps but in the main if they are a Microsoft customer they are more likely to move to Microsoft Online.

Lotus Notes and Groupwise [users] are going to take up [Google Apps] primarily and that's because they are not seeing Groupwise or Lotus Notes as being strategic for the future.

We didn't really play in the email or office collaboration space before our partnership with Google, and since then we've branched out to offer Microsoft's Online Services. We are a Microsoft Gold partner and have been for a number of years.

CRN: How has partnering with Google affected your relationship with Microsoft?

Cooper: I think there was initial trepidation from Microsoft and Google as to how a company such as ourselves could be good partners and not totally exclusive.

But I believe we've worked through that and the relationship with both companies is very positive. We are very skilled at putting in place Chinese walls where appropriate and I don't think anyone could accuse us of any information being misapplied or being directed from one organisation to another.

Both companies certainly have a preference for anyone dealing with them to be totally exclusive to their product set and that is something SMS simply will not do.

I wouldn't say that it's been without its testing moments, but I would say that's actually been healthy in building a pretty good relationship with both firms.

Roberts: Those discussions have been quite tricky at times. Ultimately both Microsoft and Google recognise there is value in having that independence.

I believe worked through that and the relationship with both companies is very positive.

We are very skilled at putting in place Chinese walls where appropriate and I don't think anyone could accuse us of any information being misapplied or being directed from one organisation to another.

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