Spain's 2nd-largest bank puts its money on Google Apps

Hot on the heels of its trial at General Motors, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) has scored a big win for its Google Apps, securing a deal with Spanish bank BBVA and opening a door for its cloud-based software to move into the financial sector worldwide.

The bank has more than 110,000 employees and has offices in 26 countries. The contract calls for it to use Google's Gmail service, Calendar, its Docs office production service and Sites, its web-creation software. The bank, Spain's second largest, is looking at the Google suite as a major cost-cutting tool. The cloud-based service also promises productivity savings. BBVA also said that it chose Google Apps to help its workers collaborate more easily, regardless of location. BBVA said the move will allow it to transform its new global intranet from a corporate communications and process management site to a place where all employees will be able to share, contribute and manage knowledge globally. BBVA said it will create a social network to improve communication and explore new ways of working. 

The bank said it expects to have all of its employees using Google Apps by the end of the year and said it will start its rollout to its 35,000 employees in Spain soon.

"Integrating the Google Apps for Business suite with our own tools will allow us to introduce a new way of working where employees have access to all the information they need with just one click, no matter where they are, and can reap the benefits of using advanced collaboration tools," said José Olalla, CIO at BBVA.

Google Apps has steadily been gaining traction as more companies have looked to the Internet and the cloud to cut spending. More than 4 million businesses, government and educational organizations are using the SaaS.

In November, General Motors reportedly reached a tentative agreement with Google to roll out Google Apps to its 100,000 employees.

IDC analyst Al Hilwa said landing GM would be a "feather in Google's cap" and a "credibility boost for cloud services for large companies."

Typically, Google charges businesses with more than 10 users $50 per year per user, but that pricing structure may have gone out the window in its attempt to win GM. Hilwa said Google may be offering a discount of up to 50 percent.

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