It was the tech equivalent of a young actor getting a call from Steven Spielberg.
Last fall, when Google Inc. was starting preparations for its new third-party software store, among the select group of about 50 vendors that the search giant invited to take part in the launch was Providence’s own BatchBlue Software LLC.
“We were very excited,” said Pamela O’Hara, who co-founded BatchBlue in Barrington in 2006 and is now its president. “I would say thrilled is an understatement.”
Google’s new virtual store, called the Apps Marketplace, went live earlier this month. It offers a central location for outside developers like BatchBlue to sell products that augment Google applications such as Gmail and Google Docs to its base of users. The company says about 2 million businesses run their operations on Google Apps.
Google spokeswoman Kat Eller declined to say why the company tapped BatchBlue, whose BatchBook software helps small businesses manage their customer relationships.
“We are pleased to have had more than 50 companies and their business-related applications available for our more than 25 million Google Apps users at launch,” she said in an e-mail. “Unfortunately, we cannot disclose why or how each of these companies were selected.”
It all began last November with classic tech-industry secrecy – BatchBlue got an e-mail from Google saying the company was working on something and wanted to talk about it, but to do so the Providence firm would have to sign a nondisclosure agreement.
Normally, BatchBlue’s lawyers would have warned not to sign such an agreement without knowing what it was about – but this was Google. “If they wanted us to take out their trash we would sign the [agreement],” O’Hara said. Indeed, her own employees had used Gmail and other Google products since the company’s founding.
Since BatchBlue had already integrated its software with Google Apps on its own, all it had to do to get ready for the Apps Marketplace launch was integrate its sign-up process so that information stored on Google Apps would migrate to BatchBook automatically when new customers signed up through the Apps Marketplace.
O’Hara said Google was “fantastic to work with,” with its people willing to listen to the smaller company’s ideas on contracts and other topics. And although eventually Google will share revenue with software developers, for now the company is not taking a cut – an added benefit to getting tapped for the launch.
The early results lived up to BatchBlue’s expectations. In the first week after the Apps Marketplace went live, the company signed up the same number of accounts as it usually does in two months. (BatchBook plans start at $9.95 per month for a single user, up to $99.95 a month for 50 users.)
“I don’t want to jinx this great success, but part of the beauty of the Google Marketplace is it’s an easier sign-up,” O’Hara said. “Everyone is in the 30-day free trial for now, but if we’re anywhere close to the retention rate we have with existing paid customers, we’ll be in great shape.” •
