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GOOGLE Australia plans to assemble an army of resellers to push its wares in a bid to go head-to-head with Microsoft.

Company's experiments reach their end. Some will live on, though, supported by volunteers or just kept running without future development.

Unsurprisingly, Google led the search market in the U.S. in 2008. But third-place Microsoft has reclaimed some share over the last five months.

Cutting contractors in the recruitment operation wasn't enough, so Google's own employees got cut as well. Also: adios bottled water?

A program to put ads on online publications and share revenue is closing in Europe, but Yahoo will keep Content Match in the U.S.

With more than 1 million business customers using Google Apps, Google decides it's time to broaden its cloud computing ecosystem by letting other businesses resell its Google Apps Premier Edition suite of messaging and collaboration applications. Now vendors will be able to resell GAPE for $40 per user, a 20 percent discount from Google's $50 per-user, per-year fee. GAPE includes Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites and other apps. Google hopes its reseller program will interest customers looking to test SAAS (software as a service) as an alternative, or in addition to, on-premise software from Microsoft and IBM. - ...

A year after Google launched its Google App Engine--challenging such established players as Amazon Web Services--eWEEK Labs takes a look at some of the applications that have been built on the Web-based platform. While none of the tools were as powerful as those from Facebook or Twitter, what applications are there show promise for Google App Engine. - ...

Internet giant looking to derive revenue from something other than online advertising

Users of Google Earth technology don't think much of popping into virtual space high above a virtual earth, than zooming in closer and closer until houses, cars, and buildings can be viewed. But paintings? Believe it or not, the same technology applies.

Google on Wednesday detailed a new program under which resellers can now offer Google Apps to businesses -- effectively meaning that companies considering the alternative to Microsoft Office don't have to go it alone. But the search giant has yet to prove its strength in supporting a partner ecosystem that could bring enterprises much needed assurances.'This is a natural evolution of where Google Apps is,' says Stephen Cho, director of Google Apps channels. In the two years since Google launched its productivity applications, Cho continues, Google has made progress with enterprise features and SLAs and gotten more than 1 million businesses aboard.[ Google Apps and other hosted suites are getting enough attention that InfoWorld's Tom Kaneshige asks, 'Can Google Apps move up market?' ]With the new program, Google intends to offer the resellers training, support, and tools for integrating Google Apps into customers' infrastructures, including APIs for tasks such as directory synchronizati