The software available in this online store will be from Google’s business partners, and it should help Google to increase the sale of Google Apps, which are not doing as well as their competitors are currently.

Google already has a website, called the ‘solutions marketplace‘, where Google Apps users can access several different add-on tools and support services such as Identity Management, Securities and Compliance, Migration and Sync. Services such as Medium/Large Deployment, Small Business Setup and Support, Custom Development, Training and Google Analytics are also available to download from this site.

The source reveals that the new store is being setup with the intention of providing better integration between Google Apps and the software provided by Google’s partners. Buying add-ons and services will thus become easier for end-users.

The solutions marketplace is just a site where users of Google Apps can connect with third-party developers. However, the business store will be likely to charge a nominal fee for whatever services or products are sold through it.

At present, about 20 million people are believed to use Google Apps, but only a small portion of them pay for these services.

In contrast, Google’s rival, Microsoft, has a far larger market share in the software sector, and almost 500 million people have paid for Microsoft Office.

Google refused to confirm or deny the setting up of a store. A statement issued by them says, “We’re constantly working with our partners to deliver more solutions to businesses, but we have nothing to announce at this time.”

The Wall Street Journal, though, believes that Google may make a formal announcement about the Apps Store by March.

Developers can use the Google App Engine to write new web applications, which will continue to be based on GFS and Bigtable. The Engine will allow creation of scalable applications, that is, developers can first build their applications on a small scale and then expand them as they gain in popularity.

Each application built using the Google App Engine will be allotted a quota of 5 million free page views per month. Bandwidth, storage and CPU use will be free. It is expected that this capacity will increase in the near future, and its users will then be able to buy additional resources as per their requirements.

The App Engine from Google will compete wiith Amazon’s S3 service. According to the InsideGoogle blog, it may also compete with social networks such as Facebook since now anything that can be done on any social network will also be possible without using a social network.

According to some, Google’s App Engine may come to be viewed as one of Google’s most revolutionary products because it will be a web host that will be well configured, well connected and well tested without being phenomenally expensive. The preview will be available to the first 10,000 people who sign up for it and download the SDK. The product is still in its trial stages and further improvements will be made on it based on feedback received from its initial applications developers.

If the ease of use of Google’s Gadget builder is anything to go by, the App Engine may well change the way information gets organised and delivered to users in the future. However, it is one of the many Google products that will never be popular with the masses due to its technical nature and specific functionality.

appengine.google.com/