The company is offering more financial incentives to expand the sales network for the software it sells to businesses while at the same time cutting back on free alternatives. Under a new cunning plan, which will be unveiled today Google will sell a package of e-mail, word processing and other office applications to third-party software resellers at a 20 percent discount in the United States.

Google charges a $50 annual fee per user for its premium software service, meaning the vendors will have to pay it $40 per user. However to increase the numbers who have to pay for its software, Google for the first time is capping the number of people who can use a less sophisticated, free version of the applications at 50 individuals per business.

The new limit doesn't apply to the thousands of mostly small and medium-sized companies that have already signed up for free software programs, nor does it apply to schools.