“Google Apps are incorporated with sales-force automation tools promises an enterprise app cloud.”
San Francisco — Two of Microsoft’s most flagrant rivals, Google and Salesforce.com, are further developing their 10-month-old cooperation in an attempt to accelerate their sales of customer management and office software to businesses.
“Apart from selling Google’s programs to its 41,000 business customers, Salesforce.com will put together the suite of applications into its own service, which helps companies track and identify customers’ needs.”
The two companies on Monday plans to announce that they have incorporated Salesforce.com’s customer relationship management software and Google’s suite of office productivity tools, which includes e-mail, word processing and spreadsheets programs, into a single software package.
The accord to be announced is based upon several years of cooperation between Salesforce.com and Google, which are trying to persuade more businesses to subscribe to software services over Internet connections as an alternative of buying programs that must be installed on individual computers.
This association thus links up Google’s spreadsheet, text editor, calendar, instant messaging, e-mail and other applications will effectively work with Salesforce.com’s tools, not just be available through the same interface.
For instance, an e-mail reply from a customer can be attached to the customer information stored within Salesforce.com, meaning that all customer interaction can be accessed from a single place. That dynamic applies to Google Talk conversations and other applications, too.
“And unlike most of the software the two companies create, the package will not require a download or installation, but rather will be delivered as a service over the Web.”
Salesforce.com Chief Executive Marc Benioff has turn out to be cloud computing’s main revivalist since he left Oracle to found his San Francisco-based company nine years ago. He considers his talk will vibrate even more with Google applications in Saleforce.com’s platform.
“This will make it easier for us to convince more businesses to stop buying Microsoft Office and switch to better services’ like this that are emerging in the cloud,” Benioff said.
Besides, Salesforce.com officials state that any third-party applications designed for Salesforce.com’s AppExchange platform are automatically integrated with Google Apps. AppExchange is a sales-outlet for add-on software delivered through the Salesforce.com platform that uses the same APIs and database engine as the Salesforce app.
Salesforce.com states that this is not any promotional attempt; its clients, through a Salesforce.com online forum called Idea Exchange, requested integration with Google Apps.
Salesforce.com and Google boast more in common than just an enthusiasm for cloud computing. Both companies have developed fun-loving cultures and set up charitable foundations funded by a portion of their profits.
Google provides basic edition of its suite of productivity applications for free and charges an annual fee of $50 per worker for a deluxe package with more options. The company did not specify how many of the businesses pay fees for the premium applications.
However, the collaboration between the two will help compete with Microsoft’s customer relationship management software, which is integrated with its Office suite.
The alliance could help Google, whose productivity programs are used by over 500,000 businesses and largely by millions of individuals, make inroads into businesses, where it is seeking to challenge Microsoft’s multibillion-dollar Office franchise.
Microsoft, which controls the productivity software market but is a smaller player in customer relationship management software, or C.R.M., brushed aside concerns about competition from the Google-Salesforce alliance.
“Salesforce has belatedly recognized that it is important to link C.R.M. apps to productivity tools,” said Brad Wilson, general manager for Microsoft’s C.R.M. unit. “It has been core to our product since we launched five years ago. It validates our strategy.”
Should the Salesforce.com-Google endeavor deliver on its promise, it could help cloud computing gain serious traction businesses, including larger enterprises that have been cool to the idea of software-as-a-service outside confined niches such as timesheet management and sales contact management.
The reason behind this is because both Salesforce.com and Google hold a broad group of major companies that use their products separately, including Salesforce.com customers A.T. Kearney Procurement Solutions, Delta Dental, Dow Jones News Wire, and Ryder. In the meantime Google also has its share of marquee names, such as American Express, Bank One, Jenny Craig, and Kimberly Clark.
Benioff declined to comment over a likely sale to Google. Dave Girouard, who oversees Google’s applications, also declined to comment about the company’s interest in buying Salesforce.
“Salesforce for Google Apps, as the integrated product is called, will be available to Salesforce customers at no additional cost starting Monday.”