It started in 2007: New Mind Group, purveyors of managed services to SMBs in the greater Kalamazoo, Mich. area, began to run into severe scalability issues with traditional Microsoft Exchange installations. As businesses grew, so did their computing needs, but they didn’t have the money or facilities to grow proportionately. That’s when New Mind Group decided to help blaze a trail now being followed by the city of Los Angeles and go to Google Apps.
Like many service provider organizations, New Mind Group, founded in the early part of this millennium, started out as a small outsourced IT department to local businesses. It was only in 2007, as e-mail and other web solutions became less novelty and more necessity for even the smallest businesses, that they began focusing on providing SaaS applications, says New Mind Group Founder and President Daniel Jefferies.
Partnering with Google in 2007 was somewhat of a gamble, Jefferies says, because Google Apps didn’t yet offer things like Outlook integration of any kind. They hadn’t even formally launched their partner program. It was worth it, he says, because Google Apps solved every scalability problem their clients had, no data centers required. Moreover, the fact that all these different SaaS applications had a single login was immensely appealing to end-customers. New Mind Group also offers “login federation” so that other SaaS applications they offer, like cloud storage (in Amazon S3 or Rackspace Cloud) or Salesforce, will use that same username and password.
Google hasn’t let down Jefferies faith yet. Rather than wait years between full releases, Google constantly makes little tweaks and adds features on the fly: Jefferies calls this model “innovate and iterate,” and it suits him down to the ground since it means that Google, and New Mind Group by extension, is far more nimble with the products and services it can offer. In fact, Jefferies believes that the current trend towards hybrid legacy/cloud solutions shows that people are starting to accept the Google SaaS model as the correct one.
Moreover, Jefferies says that Google treats its reseller partners as, well, partners, and not like numbers or line items on a spreadsheet, which only enhances New Mind Group’s loyalty.
As for the future, Jefferies says that he’d really like to see a storage solution from the search giant. And, of course, he says he’s looking forward to seeing what comes out of the Google Apps-Microsoft Office war of 2010 that’s looming on the horizon. Google Apps is great, Jefferies says, but it’s currently more of a complement to Office than a replacement. The recent DocVerse acquisition may change that, he says, since it would bring Google Apps directly to the desktop and into a more fully-featured interface.
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Posted In: Software as a Service and Hardware as a Service
Tags: Amazon S3 | Cloud | Google | Google Apps | los angeles | Microsoft Exchange | new mind group | New Mind Group Founder and President Daniel Jefferies | Rackspace Cloud | SaaS
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Bulletproof InfoTech like our colleagues at New Mind Group is launching full force into Google Apps as another offering to our clients. It simply makes sense and you know something, the clients who we serve who fit Google will go there anyways and we may just lose that IT services revenue.
We are just underway in their Partner program qualification process and we are excited about the opportunities with Google. Google will make some giant leaps into the enterprise space this year. I just have this gut feeling about it.
Our largest obstacle is around “what are the physical addresses of the data centres”? Google is not a fit for all firms (yet) outside of the United States who need assurance of where their data is stored. Sorry to my friends in the US, but many firms in Canada will not risk putting data in the United States because of the Patriot Act and the rules around this government legislation.
We continue to offer a Google solution for our clients who need this, a hosted Exchange offering (in Canada) for our clients who require this solution and of course, on premise for those who need this.
Cheers
Stuart Crawford
Bulletproof InfoTech
http://www.bulletproofIT.ca
Stuart: You bring up a key point about offering a mix of solutions… Google AND Microsoft. Sometimes the media (myself included…) overstates software competition. One size often doesn’t fit all, especially when corporate compliance and government mandates enter the picture. Plus, you gain leverage with tech companies when you offer a range of competitive options… instead of betting the house on one option.
Best,
-jp
We have a number of ConnectWise Partners looking at Google and Google Apps. We have also had several meetings with Google to understand their strategy and how they see their role and relationship with the IT Nation (all IT Solution providers). I must say, I was very impressed. Google gets us and understands the role IT Solution providers play in their success.
I have also been impressed with how fast Google is integrating their offerings. GMail, Picaa, Google Docs and a host of other Google offerings are becoming integrated. Google’s home page with iGoogle is starting to become the “Desktop”. If you are an IT Solution provider you should try out iGoogle and get a GMail account and play with Google Docs. I think is important to start becoming familiar with Google’s solutions. I would also recommend becoming understanding the power of Google’s Wave product.
Arnie Bellini
CEO, CPA, MBA
ConnectWise
Arnie: You’ve pointed out a bunch of Google brands that didn’t exist a year a two ago. And more seem to be coming every day. I think MSPs need to do a better job staying on top of those “new” brands, as you’ve pointed out.
We’re working across MSPmentor and The VAR Guy to help readers understand Google’s overall enterprise strategy. Our bloggers have been tracking Google Wave, testing Google Voice, watching potential Google Netbook moves and analyzing Google Acquisitions to help solutions providers understand where the search giant is heading next.
-jp
@Stuart and Joe
Completely agree. One size does not fit all. We still have a small percentage of clients using onsite mail servers for very logical business reasons.
With regard to the locality of data, ability to pick your primary data center would be a welcome feature if Google added it. However, you might ask your clients if they use online banking or payroll products? If so have they gone to the extent of identifying the physical locations? Do they have written guarantees that their data will never leave the country for redundancy or backup?
@Arnie
Great to see your comment here. In January we will be evaluating PSA software like yours for use by our team. I am very interested to learn the capabilities of your hosted product and your future plans in the following areas. Google Apps integration, Online invoicing and payment, access to Connectwise data via a RESTful API. I will be in contact with your team.
Daniel Jefferies
Newmind Group, Inc.
http://www.twitter.com/newmindgroup/
http://www.newmindgroup.com/