Canary in the Coal Mine: Binary Tree Leaves Google Apps Partner Program

I wrote back in May about partners who were leaving the Google Apps Partner Program in one way or another.  Well today, another established partner, Binary Tree has departed the Google Apps program citing lack of demand for a less capable email solutions. Binary Tree will now focus on the larger opportunity presented by Microsoft Exchange for on-premises and  in the cloud.

Binary Tree is the leading provider of cross-platform email migration and coexistence software.They are specialists for helping customers migration from one platform to another or driving coexistence between platforms.  So when they initially announced  in 2009 that they had a tool to help Lotus Notes customers migrate to Google Apps, this seemed like a feather in Google's cap to be validated by such a trusted company like Binary Tree who has relationships with all sorts of medium to extremely large organizations.

Canaries in the Coal Mine

We all know the cloud isn't magic and as poor as your previous platform may have been, you still want to bring over as much content as possible. Specialists like BinaryTree are at the core of moving businesses to the cloud for the next era of messaging and collaboration.  So when a company like this enters your partner program, it means a market is forming....but when they leave, it's disastrous as it's a sign your market isn't driving revenue.

In effect, they are canaries in the coal mine and unfortunately for Google, a little yellow bird just fell off it's perch.