Google targets enterprise with Apps

Making office-style apps available over the Web is one thing. Getting large enterprises to bet their business on them is quite another. Recognizing this reality, Google said it will work with IT consulting firm CapGemini to deliver Google Apps to enterprise desktops.

Google Apps is a roll-up package of Google online applications—including e-mail, calendar, word process and spreadsheets—designed specifically for corporate use.

In particular, Google Apps Premier, priced at $50 per user per desktop, includes the ability to integrate Google’s applications into a corporate computing infrastructure. It includes support for integrating the applications into an enterprise single sign-on environment as well as tools for user provisioning and management, and integrating Gmail with a corporate email gateway.

It’s the Premier version that no doubt interests Cap Gemini, which will offer integration and consulting services to help large users bring Google Apps into their IT environments. Cap Gemini will also collect a license fee for each Google Apps install, reportedly $25 per user.

Google’s main target, of course, is Microsoft, which already works with not only CapGemini but thousands of other IT outsourcers large and small to help enterprises install Windows-based networks and applications. And IT shops remain overwhelmingly Microsoft-based, particularly on the desktop where not only Microsoft Office, but Outlook/Exchange dominates. In addition, Microsoft’s SharePoint intranet server and portal-building tool has won many converts with its deep integration with Office and slick collaboration tools.

Microsoft is also moving its Office applications online, announcing a unified installer last week with support for apps that span the desktop and the network cloud.