Google Apps Gaining Critical Mass. Is The Enterprise Market Next?
New data is emerging that Google Apps may be on the verge of breaking the $1 billion mark in annual revenue.
The evidence is circumstantial collected by Backupify a Google ISV, who surveyed 8000 Google App domains representing nearly a million users.
Interestingly, at least half the user base appears to be small business orientated with 10 seats or less, but the enterprise market looks set to become Google’s next target. Meanwhile, California appears to be the State with the most interest in Google Apps, representing 17% of the seats surveyed.
Backupify has compiled this infographic to illustrate the rising interest in Google Apps.
The data collected by Backupify takes on greater significance if one considers the recent controversy around SOPA and Google’s will to fight it. While the privacy bill above has been stalled by the tech giant, amongst others, it has in recent weeks updated its privacy policies across YouTube, Google Products and elsewhere.
“The new Google privacy policy that lets the company collect, store, and share user-specific information across Google services apparently will not apply to businesses and governments that have signed contracts to use the Google Apps productivity suite,” said Ars Technica.
Google recently sent out the following statement to all its business-class Apps’ users:
We’re getting rid of over 60 different privacy policies across Google and replacing them with one that’s a lot shorter and easier to read. Our new policy covers multiple products and features, reflecting our desire to create one beautifully simple and intuitive experience for your users across Google products.
Broadly speaking, Google appears to be targeting ‘signed-in’ users with intent to use their data to “refine and improve your own personal experience on Google. We’re making our policy simpler with this change and we’re trying to be upfront about it. “
These new developments are sure to impact how Google markets itself to enterprises over the course of 2012, especially as larger companies remain jumpy about security in the cloud in general, and Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) specifically.