It’s hard to deny that Google borrowed the idea for their Android Marketplace directly from Apple’s successful App Store for iPod, iPhone, and (soon) iPad. The idea of a centralized store for (almost) all available products is very appealing to the consumer. From one interface, you can browse products within categories, compare them with competing products, and read reviews from existing customers.
Google has decided to apply this one-stop application store paradigm to cloud applications with their newly announced Google Apps Marketplace. The average computer user won’t be directly affected by this announcement. However, this is wonderful news for organizations that are already customers of the Google Apps suite, as well as organizations who are considering moving from the Microsoft suite of office and business apps to Google Apps.
Integration is integral
The Google Apps Marketplace is all about integration with 3rd party tools and services, opening the floodgates for developers to build useful extensions to the Google Apps suite. Once you purchase an app on the Marketplace, it will be able to access your organization’s data within Google Calendar, Google Docs, Gmail, etc. (after it is granted explicit permission to each service it wants to access). The 3rd party app can leverage this data to provide a richer experience to the user, seamlessly operating on the data that already exists within the Google Apps domain.
What apps are available?
For now, there aren’t a whole lot, but the list is rapidly growing, as developers are eager to get their slice of the growing pie. Experienced tech blogger Gina Trapani wrote about four marketplace apps that are worth installing right now in her article at FastCompany.
UPDATE 3/15/2010: Lifehacker showed off the Top 10 Google Apps Marketplace Apps.
Google Apps Marketplace – the App Store of the Cloud
It’s hard to deny that Google borrowed the idea for their Android Marketplace directly from Apple’s successful App Store for iPod, iPhone, and (soon) iPad. The idea of a centralized store for (almost) all available products is very appealing to the consumer. From one interface, you can browse products within categories, compare them with competing products, and read reviews from existing customers.
Google has decided to apply this one-stop application store paradigm to cloud applications with their newly announced Google Apps Marketplace. The average computer user won’t be directly affected by this announcement. However, this is wonderful news for organizations that are already customers of the Google Apps suite, as well as organizations who are considering moving from the Microsoft suite of office and business apps to Google Apps.
Integration is integral
The Google Apps Marketplace is all about integration with 3rd party tools and services, opening the floodgates for developers to build useful extensions to the Google Apps suite. Once you purchase an app on the Marketplace, it will be able to access your organization’s data within Google Calendar, Google Docs, Gmail, etc. (after it is granted explicit permission to each service it wants to access). The 3rd party app can leverage this data to provide a richer experience to the user, seamlessly operating on the data that already exists within the Google Apps domain.
What apps are available?
For now, there aren’t a whole lot, but the list is rapidly growing, as developers are eager to get their slice of the growing pie. Experienced tech blogger Gina Trapani wrote about four marketplace apps that are worth installing right now in her article at FastCompany.
UPDATE 3/15/2010: Lifehacker showed off the Top 10 Google Apps Marketplace Apps.