Google renames its enterprise business to 'Google for Work'

SAN FRANCISCO — Google wants to remind you that it serves businesses as well as individuals around the world. Now, after selling technology to businesses for more than a decade, it’s time for the second act.

Going forward, that portion of Google, Google Enterprise, will instead go by the name Google for Work, executives said at a press conference today.

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“It’s simpler to explain,” said Amit Singh, president of the unit. “It fully respects and works with our consumer heritage, where we start many of our products. It’s easier to explain on the web with our sign-up flow.”

And the name encompasses not just the biggest of businesses, but all businesses. Which reflects how determined Google says it is to bring in more revenue from businesses, through Chromebooks, cloud applications like Gmail and Google Drive, videoconferencing gear, and its burgeoning cloud infrastructure for running applications.

It’s hardly limited to the Google Search Appliance that came out in 2002.

But across the board, Google will keep throwing money at such products and services.

“We’re really investing in Google for Work,” Singh said.

Executives have previously promised the coming of more features — and presumably investment — for the Google Cloud Platform, and Shailesh Rao, its director, wants people to know it’s not going to go away like, say, Google Reader.

“Yes, we are serious about the Cloud Platform,” Rao said.

The question is how much will companies come to trust Google as a technology vendor. But executives believe the name change will help that campaign — a name that won’t necessarily conjure up year-long sales cycles or CIOs provisioning software to tens of thousands of employees.

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“Many of the things that are actually associated with enterprise is not what we do, and so over time that dissonance just kept growing bigger,” Singh said.