decosoup

Business to business software can be a tough sell. Online B2B can be even a harder sell. While there is certainly money to be made, unless you’re one of the big players, the likelihood you’re going to succeed is pretty small. Starting today, Google is taking their roll as one of the big players and extending a platform to boost some smaller players.

Tonight, Google has unveiled their Google Apps Marketplace. This is an app store for enterprise apps in the cloud. Using a set of APIs, these third-party apps can deeply integrate their products within Google Apps, which already some 25 million people are using. And that also includes over 2 million businesses ranging from startups, to small businesses, to Fortune 500 companies.

For customers, this means a one-stop shop for a variety of applications that their business or organization can use. And it’s extremely simple to get started with apps in the marketplace — it just takes 4 clicks, Google says (though that initial click will have to come from your domain admin to approve the use of the app). For developers, particularly small startup developers, it means instant access to more users than they can likely imagine. It also potentially means something more important: money.

Like the popular mobile app stores (Apple’s App Store and Google’s own Android Market), Google is allowing developers to sell their apps through this Marketplace. And they’re actually offering a better deal: Google will keep just 20% of the revenue, while the developers keep the other 80% (compared to a 30/70 split with the Android Market). The reason for this better split is that Google believes the B2B market is a bit different, and they want to entice developers to join on board. And instead of Apple’s App Store, which charges a $100 yearly fee to developers, Google is charging a one-time fee of $100 to enroll in the program — and that’s for as many apps as you want to create.

As for what Google will do with their 20% share, they’re not entirely sure. “We don’t know what will happen with the revenue, but we think it’s a very fair rev share for the value we’re providing,” Google Vice President of Engineering Vic Gundotra says.

As you might expect, in the Marketplace, Google will feature certain apps on a rotating basis. And each will have a star rating system and reviews written by people who have used the app. Apps will be grouped into different categories to make it easier for customers to find exactly what they’re looking for. Once they do, the four steps alluded to above are:

1. Click “Add it now”
2. Agree to the vendor’s Terms of Service
3. Grant access to the data that the app is requesting.  Some apps require data access, some don’t – only grant access to apps you trust.
4. Turn it on and start enjoying your increased productivity

So how does this all work? Google connection points for integration into Apps are actually done through open protocols such as OAuth. And while signing-in may seem like a pain across different apps, Google has streamlined that as well thanks to another open protocol: OpenID.

Once an app is hooked in to Google Apps, it will appear on your main Apps Dashboard alongside the other Google-made apps you use. It will even appear in the “more” drop down that Google uses in the toolbar across its properties. And because these apps are so tightly woven into Google Apps, they can take advantage of the built-in Google Apps such as Gmail and Gtalk to easily communicate within the third-party apps.

And there’s more. While it’s not quite ready to launch just yet, in the second half of 2010, Google plans to launch flexible billing options for third-parties using their services. Basically, this will allow companies to use Google Checkout to handle complicated billings, such as subscriptions. This could mean trouble for startups specifically in this space, such as Recurly. Also coming later will be detailed analytics for transactions, we’re told. For now, developers are free to hook up their data to their own analytic programs to run their numbers.

While Google’s options for this Marketplace sound nice and open, there’s actually something even better: you don’t have to build your apps on their platform. Whereas a big player like Salesforce wants to keep the apps it works with in the Force.com ecosystem, Google doesn’t care where you build it — it can be on App Engine, or on anything else. You simply hook your app up to the APIs and you’re ready to go. It’s a model so enticing that even a big Google competitor in this space, Zoho, is ready to work with them, and is launching as an initial partner. All told, there are more than 50 companies partnering up at launch, including a winner of the audience award at this year’s TechCrunch50, Socialwok.

As to whether Google could eventually roll this app store model out to the more consumer facing apps they offer, Gundotra gave me the old, “We have nothing to announce at this time.” That reads suspiciously to me like a “yes,” provided this is the hit it seems like it should be.

Tonight, Google is hosting one of their Campfire One events at their headquarters in Mountain View, CA. They’re using the event to launch their new Google Apps Marketplace. This is the app store that business applications can use to reach the more than 25 million people and 2 million business that use Google Apps for their domains.

Below, find our live notes.

Vic Gundotra, Vice President of Engineering

• Two million businesses have “gone Google”
• 25 million users.
• Everything you need is now in the cloud for businesses
• Tonight we’re launching the new Google Apps Marketplace
• It’s great for developers – who get access to these 25 million users instantly
• It’s also great for users.
• It’s simple to integrate.
• Build your app. And you don’t have to use App Engine. You can use whatever you want.
• And you can sell your app in the Marketplace.
• What does Google ask in return? A one-time fee of $100. And a low 20% rev share.
• Over 50 launch partners.

David Glazer, Engineering Director

• I want to walk you through the “how” now – build, integrate, and sell.
• Google Apps now has a large and growing number of extension points (we’ll be adding more over time)
• there is a central management system
• Universal integration to Google Apps navigation system.
• We use OpenID to manage authentication. Single sign-on.
• And we use OAuth for secure access to data. The OAuth grant of trust is built into the Marketplace.

• We have a complete manifest.
• Time for a demo. Here’s a developer showing off a “hello world” application.
• Easy step-by-step process to get your application in the Marketplace.

• It might take a couple of days for the app to show up in the Marketplace when you submit it.
• A domain admin simply then clicks the “Add it now” button.
• Then just three clicks left – 1) agree to terms of service 2) grant data access (such as to your calendar) 3) enable the app
• You can even see it in the apps drop down if you’re in, say, Gmail.

• Here’s Intuit now showing how to take a real app – for payroll – to show how easy it is to itegrate.
• Intuit is the largest payroll provider in the nation.
• We usually serve small companies, many are less than 20 employees.
• Another demo, this time from Atlassian – a software development company
• You can easily embed your information inside of Gmail.

• The thing I’m most excited about is the studio activity bar.
• With this, Google Talk can be used for instant collaboration.
• All of this is available today. In fact it’s being used by 40 developers in a bus traveling from SF to SXSW in Austin, TX.

• Another demo, Manymoon – a social productivity app.
• We used open standards to convert free users to paid users.
• Everything you’ve seen so far will be live later tonight – for this next demo, it will be coming soon.
• Gmail contextual gadgets – like when a YouTube video is embedded in Gmails – soon third-parties will be able to use this.

• Here’s a demo from Appirio.