Recapping the Global Enterprise Partner Summit: Partners are the Cornerstone of the Ecosystem’s Success

Nick Freund is the Director of Business Development at BetterCloud where he oversees all partner relationships and business development initiatives.

Last week was Google’s second annual Global Enterprise Partner Summit. The event, which brought more than 700 partners to San Francisco, was a showcase of sorts for Google’s current partners – Google Apps, Search, Maps for Business, Cloud Platform and Chrome. It also served as a launching pad for new Enterprise initiatives, like Google’s new technology partner track, open exclusively to independent software vendors building products heavily integrated with the Google Apps suite. This program is set to build upon existing relationships between Google and Google Apps Marketplace ISVs, now numbering more than 750.

For BetterCloud, the week was a great opportunity to meet with all of our partners and interact with others in the ecosystem – most of whom work in markets around the world, and who we would otherwise never get a chance to meet. BetterCloud strives to work with the most successful, best known and professional Google Services Partners (formerly known as Google Apps resellers) around the world, and it was amazing to see our partners in person, meet new ones and see how quickly the ecosystem is growing – during the Summit, Google announced that its reseller community is now 10,000 strong, up from 6,000 just a year and a half ago. We even hosted a happy hour to bring the community together before the summit officially kicked off.

The summit also reinforced the partner community’s impact on the overall success of the Google Apps ecosystem – something our most recent customer survey wholeheartedly supports. In fact, our findings show that customers of resellers are happier with Google Apps than those who do not work with a reseller.

And, this partner community is proving more and more vital to the success of independent software vendors like BetterCloud. Thanks in part to our partners, FlashPanel is now used by more than 30,000 organizations around the world. But, customers of partners still want more, especially when it comes to third-party applications. When we asked customers what they’re looking for from their resellers, a third said they’d like more recommendations and guidance for third-party apps.

We’re hoping that Google’s new technology partner track will bring more ISVs to the forefront and display their important place in the Google Apps ecosystem. Clearly, customers are looking for third-party applications to bolster their Apps deployments and this new program should make it easier for resellers to discover the ecosystem’s leading application offerings. The launch signifies Google’s recognition of the weight the Marketplace carries and how important its solutions are for organizations moving to and operating on Google Apps. The technology partner track also validates some of BetterCloud’s own initiatives, like the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps, of which BetterCloud is the founding member.

We’re incredibly grateful to work with amazing partners and software vendors and can’t wait for all that 2014 has in store.

If you’re interested in joining the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps, please email info@cloudallianceforgoogleapps.com. Or, if you’d like more information on our partner program, please visit flashpanel.com/partners.