Google cripples Google Apps Standard and pushes Premier

Google is now giving anyone with the expertise, and desire, to resell Google Apps Premier Edition (GAPE). This is a significant departure from Google's past sales tactics, and it will definitely be interesting to see what kind of impact it has on their market share.

This new opportunity gives companies with the capacity to make significant amounts of recurring income by reselling GAPE. As a "reseller", you are responsible for billing customers -- that means you could technically charge whatever you want for the service. In turn, Google then bills you for the accounts you sell, at a reduced rate.

Google also provides training and support materials for resellers, which will hopefully give end users a better customer service experience -- something that is severely lacking in both GAPE and Standard edition.

It's interesting to note that Google has also put a stop to people creating "standard" accounts (which are free) that have more than 50 users. This is a strategic move that makes the free version of Google Apps usless for a huge number of companies. What do you think of the new reseller program, and the user limit on new Standard accounts?