Google will host this week its most important conference yet for external developers, whose applications and mashups the company considers key to its success.

In addition to its almost 100 in-depth technical sessions, the event, called Google I/O, also holds great symbolic importance: It's Google's strongest statement to date of its deep, long-term commitment to external developers.

As a result, Google is taking on the challenge of meeting these programmers' heightened expectations about the company's developer technology, support, training and terms of service.

While Google's first overtures to developers years ago were made in an ad-hoc, informal manner, its relationship with them is now more serious, as Google APIs are now used in commercial Web sites and in applications that support workplace processes, not just in cool amateur mashups.

Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering for developer products at Google, acknowledged that with this first edition of I/O, Google makes it clear that it is in it for the long haul in working for and with external programmers.

"All the activity you've seen in the past year is indicative of how serious Google is about developers and our level of commitment," he said. "This is the beginning of a very long-term commitment we have."

So far, developers seem generally satisfied with Google's programs, although there is no shortage of wish lists, requests, suggestions and comments among them. One company deeply interested in Google's developer programs is Bungee Labs, which foresees that Google APIs will generate a lot of the application traffic on its Bungee Connect hosted development and hosting platform, now available in beta mode.

While happy so far with the developer programs, Bungee Labs nonetheless would like to see Google strengthen its tool and API documentation, as well as improve its direct communication efforts. In addition, Google would do well to extend its line of APIs that provide access to the data Google services hold, said Brad Hintze, product marketing director at Bungee Labs.

The documentation available is "pretty good, but they could use a little more," Hintze said in a phone interview.

Likewise, the breadth of Google APIs is "really good and they keep adding to them, so on that front they're doing a terrific job," but Bungee Labs would like data APIs for services such as Gmail, so that they could be tied to business applications and CRM (customer relationship management) systems, he said.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.