A new report, sponsored by Google-friendly ISV peer group Cloud Alliance for Google Apps, has found that when it comes to reasons for moving to the search giant’s cloud, the low $50/user/year is only part of it. Instead, the 2,000 Google Apps administrators polled strongly indicated that they were really after collaboration.

David Politis, veteran of Google Apps services giant Cloud Sherpas, chairman of the Cloud Alliance, and CEO of Google ISV BetterCloud, says that the point of the survey was to really let the Google Apps developer ecosystem know what CIOs and administrators want from their cloud tools. The answer, overwhelmingly, was consolidation and integration, with the ability to have app data deeply tie into Gmail and Google Docs a huge selling point.

A full quarter of survey respondents with over 200 seats said that security and user privacy were their main concern with Google Apps. 17.5% of answering administrators said that system availability and SLAs were their primary point of pessimism, with legacy  and existing software deployment interoperability clocking in at 15%. The rest apparently reported no concerns with moving to Google Apps whatsoever.

You can download the full report from the Cloud Alliance for Google Apps directly here, but this handy infographic has some more highlights:

Politis says that this survey is especially vindicating for Google Apps partners in light of the fact that Microsoft Office 365, Google’s rival in the cloud productivity space for the better part of a year now, recently slashed its prices to be more competitive and appeal to  the CIO’s wallet. But this survey suggests that price may be the least of it.

A necessary word of skepticism: This is a survey sponsored by Google Apps ISVs, with only Google Apps administrators polled, so take it with a grain of salt when Politis and the Cloud Alliance say that this proves that Google Apps has a real edge over Microsoft Office 365 and any other players in the cloud productivity market. After all, a recent study from CSC indicates that most of the cost savings of the cloud is exaggerated, anyway.

Regardless, it’s certainly food for thought for CIOs and Google Apps developers alike.