Google is doubling down on its
channel strategy with its recent unveiling of its Cloud Transformation Program,
in which the company is using partners to deliver value-added services built
around Google’s cloud portfolio. The program will start out with six select
partners participating, but Google intimates that it will expand to more as it
gains steam.
"We’re excited to have
CSC, Cloud Sherpas, Cognizant, Opera Solutions, Razorfish, SADA Systems and
TempusNova as our initial Cloud Transformation Program partners," said
Rahul Sood, global head of enterprise partnerships for Google. "These
partners all have deep expertise and a proven track record of success helping
businesses make the most of their IT investments, so we appreciate their
support."
The idea behind the program is
to use partner expertise to ease larger organizations into a complete
transition to platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service
(IaaS) products like Google App Engine, Google App Script, Google Storage for
Developers and Google Prediction API.
As one of Google’s leading
partners in reselling and implementing Google Apps, Cloud Sherpas will likely
have a big role in leading the charge for greater channel involvement in Google
business development.
"Cloud Sherpas has a great
record of helping enterprise customers run their businesses using Google Apps
and embrace our 100% web vision,” Sood said.
Known for custom workflow and
application development work using Google’s cloud toolset, Cloud Sherpas
already has considerable experience aiding customers with just the transitions
that Google’s new program is meant to spur on.
In one example, the Cloud
Sherpa helped Simmons Food Company move from a Lotus environment by creating a
tool to migrate Lotus Domino applications to Google’s cloud and developing
several custom Google App Engine gadgets to integrate with Google Sites in
order to give Simmons the level of functionality it needed to deliver to users
of the transferred database. The transition by Simmons gave it the ability to
better sort and search its data and put power into the users’ hands to query
multiple databases much more quickly. It also improved workflow for adding
documents to the Simmons intranet and gave them greater access to documents
while offsite.
“Cloud Sherpas combined Google
App Engine and Google Sites to allow us to turn off our Lotus Notes servers and
obtain the maximum ROI on ‘Going Google,’” said
James Dunham, IT manager of Simmons Food Company.