Google does software deal with the Revenue (taxcareers magazine September 2007)

Google - in partnership with Capgemini - has signed a major new deal with the Revenue & Customs to supply tax software.

The IT services group will add Google's wordprocessing, spreadsheet and e-mail tools to the portfolio of software applications it offers to its clients. This is the latest expression of Google's ongoing rivalry with Microsoft, which has long dominated the desktop market with its Office portfolio of products, including Word and Excel.

Google unveiled a paid-for collection of rivals tools in February, offering businesses a bundle of web-based services, accessible over the internet, for $50 (£25) a year per user. Since then it has said that the product has been signing up more than 1,000 small businesses a day and has been adopted by more than 100,000 firms. Microsoft Office, however, has around 240 million users. The partnership with Capgemini is designed to broaden Google's exposure to large corporate customers as it pushes its software as a service (SaaS) model - under which clients pay subscription fees for tools hosted on Google hardware and supplied through a web browser.

Capgemini manages 290,000 desktops in the UK, across private and public-sector organisations. It deals with the personal computers of 110,000 staff of Revenue & Customs and of 60,000 workers at the Metropolitan Police.