Google means serious business and it has tapped all of its users in the United States and Canada to market Google Apps for Business.

The company announced, Monday, a referral program that will allow qualified individuals to pocket an extra $15 for a successful Google Apps for Business user referral.

"Many of the millions of Google Apps customers learned about tools like Hangouts, Drive and Gmail for business from their customers, friends and networks. To help continue the momentum, we're launching the Google Apps Referral Program. The referral program makes it easy to share Google Apps with your network and show them how they too can use these tools at work," the company stated on its Google Enterprise blog.

In order to join the referral program, one can easily sign up in less that five minutes. Google will just ask for the person's name and email address. However, one must have a valid taxpayer identification number and a bank account where the payments will be deposited.

Qualified individuals can earn $15 for every referred user who will be paying for at least four months. Likewise, referrals can enjoy a $10 savings per user on the first 12 months of using Google Apps.

Google does not limit the number of referrals that one can make and hardworking referees can get credits for the first 100 users of the referred customers.

Aside from boosting earnings, Google believes that as more individuals in a network use its apps, the easier it will be to collaborate with each other.

"These are moments we want to share with friends and colleagues because the more the people in our networks use Google Apps, the more seamlessly we can collaborate with them -- whether it's video conferencing via Hangouts, working together on Docs or sharing calendars. Best of all, it means we can all begin to experience a new way of working," Google stated.

Google does not really have to address issues about branding but money speaks and running a promo like this will get them a good number of sign-ups. There is also no risk for the company. While giving away $15 for new customers who pay for four months, the company will already have a $5-take home for each deal. In case the new user does not want to continue after three months, then there's no reward money to give away.

The Google Apps for Business referral program hits Microsoft in the tummy especially after rebranding its Office Web Apps to Microsoft Office Online in an attempt to outmaneuver Google.

Now the price war begins. Win-win for cloud services users.