Google Apps’ Growing Cloud Influence
The pull of Google Apps is getting stronger, with a string of related news items this week. First up is Cloud Sherpas, which has announced that it has secured $1.6M in series A-1 financing. The round was led by Syncarpha Capital, Vento Security Holdings and Sherpas CEO Jon Hallett’s Hallett Capital. This raises the company’s total funding since May to $3 million; a figure matching the current 3 million Google Apps users. Out of these, Cloud Sherpas’ hold is reasonable, with 600,000 enterprise users, as well as 8,000 companies (worth 1.5M individual users) using its software.
“We’ll use the additional funds to expand our software portfolio so that clients can fully maximize the Google Apps platform. The capital will also allow us to expand our services capability to provide enhanced 3rd party integration to Google’s software stack.”
As quoted from Cloud Sherpas’ CEO, the $1.6M gained in their recent financing round seemly comes at the full benefit to the company and of course, the users. It has already anchored itself deals with Baird & Warner, LifeWay, 22squared and more, as the new addition is likely to work in favor of the creator of “…the top IT admin tool in the Google Apps Marketplace” in terms of both growth and good PR.
The cloud computing systems integrator/app developer has migrated users from major G-Apps competitors such as Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Notes, which makes it a huge asset to Google and an equivalent pain for its competitors. For now Sherpas may even be on some sort of a roll, but it must prepare itself for the next big thing coming from the competition, as those recent $3 million dollars raised may just do the trick.
Google’s influence can be felt elsewhere, as it makes steps to dominate the cloud sctor in multiple ways. Landing deals with large organizations has been a goal for Google since Apps first launched, and the search engine giant is now taking a US government organization to court over their use of Microsoft products as well. Google’s also seeking more ways to attract end users, with features like cloud printing.
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