Google Taps Capgemini To Push Its Desktop Apps Into Global CompaniesGoogle Taps Capgemini To Push Its Desktop Apps Into Global Companies

After months of dabbling with small businesses and schools, Google's ready to get more global businesses using its Google Apps suite of productivity tools.

Capgemini this week will begin offering the premier edition of the suite -- including word processing, spread-sheets, customizable home pages, e-mail, chat, and calendar apps -- to its desktop outsourcing customers. Google will host the apps from its data centers, and Capgemini will support them, charging additional fees for services such as deployment, integration, help-desk support, software and hardware provisioning, and security monitoring and software.

Google's low-cost Web software delivered as a subscription service saves money and eliminates installation hassles for companies that have employees who aren't regular desktop users, or who rely heavily on handheld devices, such as those working on retail or manufacturing floors. It also facilitates collaboration by letting people work together online on one master document rather than trading large e-mail attachments that require version tracking and coordination. People already are using Google Apps, sometimes without the blessing of their IT departments, and that can spell trouble, said Steve Jones, Capgemini's global head of software as a service and SOA, in an interview.

Capgemini says it's not looking to transition its outsourcing customers from Microsoft Office to Google Apps, and the two may be complementary. But if a business tries to put the kibosh on Google Apps, employees will go underground and use the suite in ways it shouldn't be used, Jones said. "In pharmaceuticals, for example, you don't want to use this for exchanging information on clinical trials, because the data is in the cloud," he said.

Capgemini offers multilingual desktop support services from 17 cities worldwide, from Kansas City to Krakow to Mumbai. Google already has some big names using the suite -- Procter & Gamble, General Electric, and L'Oreal among them.