Meet Google's top Australian partner

Cloud integrator Fronde has been named Google Partner of the Year for the Asia-Pacific region.

The company, which is headquartered in New Zealand and has a signficant Australian footprint, was recognised for its expertise in delivering Google for Work solutions with a number of high-level government departments.

The award was also in recognition of Fronde’s revenue sales in 2015. The company’s Australian sales grew 99.13 percent to $11 million last year, earning it No.11 in the CRN Fast50.

Fronde managing director Don McLean said it was a proud moment for the team for all their hard work serving Google customers.

“We could not have achieved this milestone without our loyal customers and their faith in our ability to help them get the best out of Google Apps for Work every day – as well as design and deliver new technology solutions to ensure they continue to achieve their business goals,” said McLean.

Fronde said it deployed Google Apps for Work to more than 40,000 business users since it became a partner in 2008. The company was also named Netsuite's APAC Partner of the Year in 2014.

Google and Microsoft have been locked in a pricing war with Microsoft in a bid to win over partners with their respective productivity suites.

Last year, Google began offering Apps for Work for free to customers locked into Microsoft enterprise agreements. Google will also put up US$25 per user for partners to subsidise the cost of creating a new Apps account.

Microsoft has hit back to expanding its FastTrack program to make it easier for SMBs to migrate to Office 365; customers with 50 to 149 seats will gain access to the suite of free tools to migrate clients to the cloud. Previously, only organisations with 150 seats or more were eligible for the program.