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Apr-14-2008Salesforce.com, Google expand strategic alliance to deliver joint ...(topic overview)
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- SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - April 14, 2008) - Appirio ( www.appirio.com ]] www.appirio.com ) today announced four new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings that bring together Google Apps and Salesforce CRM. The four Appirio offerings enable Salesforce and Google users to easily synchronize calendars, collaborate on marketing campaigns, find and embed documents, and create and share customized CRM dashboards. (More...)
- As of January 31, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 41,100 customers including ABN AMRO, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel, and SunTrust Banks. (More...)
- Five people could work on building a presentation using Google Apps using the same version and it will stay on the internet. (More...)
- If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. (More...)
- Last June Appirio announced it had joined the Google Enterprise Professional program. (More...)
- Even when it does, there seems to be no development strategy or roadmap that discerning buyers can assess. (More...)
- The company's Force.com PaaS enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful on-demand applications that deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy across the enterprise. (More...)
- Salesforce.com, in the past, has offered similar integration with Microsoft Office as well as Outlook. (More...)
- When it takes just a mouse click to open Gmail and have the message saved with the prospect record, it won't take long before Gmail becomes the default email system for most Salesforce users. (More...)
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SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - April 14, 2008) - Appirio ( www.appirio.com ]] www.appirio.com ) today announced four new Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) offerings that bring together Google Apps and Salesforce CRM. The four Appirio offerings enable Salesforce and Google users to easily synchronize calendars, collaborate on marketing campaigns, find and embed documents, and create and share customized CRM dashboards. "Google and salesforce.com are bringing together the world's leading platforms to empower organizations of all sizes to run their office in the cloud," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. "With their new products and services, Appirio is leading the way in making customers successful using Google and Salesforce together." "Organizations of all sizes face a common challenge of helping their users communicate and share information more effectively," said Dave Girouard, Google vice president and general manager of Enterprise. "Appirio's solutions use the power of Google and Salesforce to help solve this problem for customers today." Appirio CEO Chris Barbin added, "As the first software and services company with a partnership with both Google Enterprise and salesforce.com, we have seen the impact each company has had on the market for on-demand in the enterprise. [1] The four Appirio offerings "enable Salesforce and Google users to synchronize calendars, collaborate on marketing campaigns, find and embed documents, and create and share customized CRM dashboards," according to Appirio officials. "Google and Salesforce.com are bringing together the world's leading platforms to empower organizations of all sizes to run their office in the cloud," said Marc Benioff ( News - Alert ), chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com. Appirio CEO Chris Barbin said that "as the first software and services company with a partnership with both Google Enterprise and Salesforce.com ( News - Alert )," by incorporating Google's collaboration and business productivity applications into Salesforce.com's Force.com Platform and CRM applications, "we believe that a new class of products will emerge that unite personal productivity and business systems."[2]
Marc Benioff, Salesforce CEO, said, as quoted by PC World: 'The combination of our leading CRM applications and Google's business productivity applications pushes forward the transformation of the industry to cloud computing. The decision was made at the customers' request, Salesforce said, and so far Salesforce.com customers have had the chance to test the new integration through its beta version. They will pay no additional charge for the service, the company said. Google confirmed its plans to collaborate with different partners in a statement prior to the announcement of this collaboration: 'We're committed to advancing the Web as the platform and partners are key to our growth,' said Scott McMullan, CNET News reports. Salesforce.com's CEO Mark Benioff said that through this partnership, it will be easier for businesses to use other services such as this as an alternative to Microsoft Office. There are still a lot of things to be made before this integration will become fully secure and convince even the most skeptic clients, but things look promising.[3]
Google and Salesforce.com announced on Monday that they are extending their relationship for customers of both companies. Salesforce customers will now be able to use their customer relationship management (CRM) software with a range of Google software including Google Apps, Gmail, Calendar and Google Talk messaging. What this means is that a Gmail or Google Talk response can be added to the customer information stored by a Salesforce CRM application. "This is simple and easy integration of our CRM with Google Apps," said Woodson Martin, Salesforce's vice president for EMEA. "It was natural for us to do this as we had over 16,000 customer requests for this through our Idea Exchange." This is a Salesforce.com website where customers can bring their ideas, thoughts and complaints about the company's software and exchange their ideas and applications they have developed. Although this service for Google is new to Salesforce, it is not the first of its type for the company. Salesforce already links up its software to Microsoft's Office and Outlook, offering some similar facilities to those offered by Google.[4] Appirio's services focus primarily on Google's messaging applications (Gmail, Google Calendar and Google Talk) and the company's knowledge management and collaboration applications (Google Docs, Google Start Page and Google Sites). This is a critical, often overlooked aspect in the move to on-demand. -- Services for Google Apps with Salesforce - A complete set of services for enterprise customers using both salesforce.com and Google to unite personal productivity and business systems. Appirio's Google Enterprise practice has helped companies in the high-tech, pharmaceutical, financial services, telecom, and government verticals to successfully roll out Google Apps across their organizations. Appirio was also recently selected by salesforce.com to assist with its own internal Google Apps implementation. "Appirio's deep domain knowledge of Google Apps and salesforce.com, along with their experience getting new users up and running quickly on new applications, were key reasons for involving Appirio in our internal implementation," said Trae Chancellor, CIO of salesforce.com.[5] Desktop business applications just took another hit with the launch of Salesforce for Google Apps, which integrates Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Google Docs into Salesforce '''s customer relationship management service. The concept is pretty simple: Companies who use Salesforce'''s online service to manage sales, marketing and customer relations can now access Google Apps within the Salesforce interface. While using Salesforce, businesses can now collaborate with customers on Google Docs, send them messages via Gmail and schedule meetings on Google Calendar (see video below).[6]
The quoting solution offers an option to select Google Docs(TM) for output for public or private publishing of quotes to the web. This allows for special customization with images and wrapped text; it opens the door for in-house collaboration on quote pricing and positioning, as well as for collaborative negotiations with prospects -- all with the sharing permissions and revision history available from Google Docs. Astadia Report Collaboration gives Salesforce users the ability to export any report to Google Spreadsheets for further analysis, and to safely and selectively share the reports with both Salesforce and non-Salesforce users. The export process takes only a few clicks, making it easy for any Salesforce user with a Google Apps business account to take advantage of this functionality. "We are thrilled to be key participants in this landmark launch event," said Scott Blodgett, Astadia CTO. "We are building our family of integrated products for these two platforms on top of the social networking application that we released at the OpenSocial launch last November." Astadia's social networking solution, AppFactor BLOX for OpenSocial, allows Salesforce users to view and manage the social network of contacts that exists right from within their database. "Astadia continues to demonstrate its commitment to customer success by delivering new applications that extend the value of Salesforce for Google Apps," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "These compelling new applications showcase Astadia's technology expertise and give companies new ways to take advantage of cloud computing to run their businesses."[7] The basic service is offered free but companies that want to include more features to give their users a richer experience can sign-up with Google Apps Premiere for '5 per user per day. The companies first announced they were linking up in June last year, when they launched a combined website designed to allow Salesforce to act as a reseller for Google's AdWords. Salesforce Group Edition lets companies connect to Google AdWords and have their advertisement displayed on Google.com when related search terms are entered on the site, and it will distribute their ads on Google AdSense. While Salesforce's Marin told ZDNet.co.uk he was "very excited" about this development and said it was "a step forward for cloud computing", Google hasn't ruled out working with other partners. "We're committed to advancing the web as the platform and partners are key to our growth, whether it's a developer doing custom applications and gadgets, a company such as Appirio making calendar sharing even easier, or Salesforce.com deeply integrating Google Apps into their CRM products," said Scott McMullan, the Google Apps partner lead for Google Enterprise. Mike Ricciuti of CNET News.com contributed to this report.[4]
"In addition to providing services to hundreds of thousands of customers, we have witnessed firsthand the benefits of the cloud: salesforce.com was one of the first Google Apps customers, and Salesforce has been an invaluable tool in growing Google's business." Both salesforce.com and Google have altered the software landscape by delivering SaaS applications, for CRM and productivity respectively, over the Internet. Today, this shift in the technology industry is being referred to as cloud computing, and salesforce.com and Google are well poised to deliver it to the enterprise.[8] "Google and salesforce.com have always had similar models and philosophies about delivering innovations made possible by the Internet," said Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google. "Salesforce.com was a pioneer in Software-as-a-Service and a year ago we joined them in this mission to bring the benefits of cloud computing to businesses of all types. Together, we are making more applications and services available online so customers can focus on building their core business rather than the applications that support it." "Salesforce.com is thrilled to be offering Google Apps integrated with our Salesforce applications and Force.com Platform-as-a-Service to the millions of businesses looking to manage their entire office in the cloud," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com.[8] The announcement had been overhyped and rumors had swirled for several weeks prior, including my own speculation whether Google might buy Salesforce.com. With far less hype this time (apart from an over-enthusiastic Reuters report, which Salesforce.com can hardly bear responsibility for), I believe today's release has fulfilled many of those early expectations. It's taken a while, but that's because the two companies' developers have worked together to create a solid integration that is live and ready to use now ''' except for certain aspects including several of the new API hooks, which won't be available for custom use until Salesforce.com's summer release. For Google, the combination brings Google Apps into big enterprise accounts and also expands its footprint among smaller businesses. For Salesforce.com, it expands the reach of its Salesforce application and further validates its Force.com integration and development platform. More importantly for both of them ''' and for the rest of us who are committed to the on-demand model ''' it puts extra weight behind the gathering trend towards running business applications and computing in the cloud.[9]
SAN FRANCISCO, April 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Astadia, a global business consulting and SaaS solutions company, today announced the availability of two new applications, Astadia Quoting and Astadia Report Collaboration, as part of the newly added Google Apps(TM) category on salesforce.com's AppExchange. Customers can use the two new Astadia applications to extend the value of Salesforce for Google Apps, adding quoting and report collaboration to the suite of CRM, collaboration, and business productivity applications, further enabling companies to run their business in the cloud.[7] Companies are still struggling to get reports created in anything but Microsoft Excel ]] anything but Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Outlook remains the primary interface ]] Outlook remains the primary interface for many a sales force. "The negative is, large enterprises are not going to displace Microsoft Office just because of the integration, but it does provide alternatives to companies that want to use something else for now," Kingstone said "It's perfect for small and medium-sized businesses that don't necessarily want to invest in the Office suite." Today's announcement should benefit both Google and Salesforce.com equally, according to Jeff Kaplan, managing director with Wellesley, Mass. -based THINKstrategies. "This is not necessarily going to represent the downfall of Microsoft Office anytime soon, but it certainly represents an escalation of Google apps as a viable alternative and certainly strengthens Salesforce's CRM," he said. "It enhances Salesforce because it provides added productivity and collaboration while at the same time it helps to legitimize Google as having enterprise-quality capabilities."[10] The partnership integrates Google Apps products, which include word processing, spreadsheet and e-mail components, into Salesforce's customer relationship management service. The combo will be available as a hosted (SaaS) service, which means users can access them online without having to download software. This deal integrates more cross-product functionality between two popular tools, and presents a direct challenge to Microsoft and its integrated Office suite, which includes productivity software and a CRM product for businesses.[11] The pairing will compete with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. It also points toward the companies' designs on Microsoft's broader business-software offerings. "This is freedom to focus on the benefits and not focus on the software," said Bruce Francis, vice president of corporate strategy at Salesforce. Salesforce will make Google Apps, a suite including Web-based e-mail, word processing, chat, presentations and spreadsheets, available free to its more than 41,000 business customers. Those customers have more than 1 million paying users of the Salesforce software. This summer, the company plans to begin selling a "supported" version of Salesforce for Google Apps with unified billing and interfaces to link the online software with existing systems, which, among other things, would allow customers to migrate from Microsoft e-mail products to Gmail.[12]
Google's Gmail, Talk, Calendar and Docs make up the new offering, dubbed Salesforce for Google Apps, which will be delivered online. Salesforce.com users can access Google Apps on their own, but the integration means customer interaction can be conducted in a single view. The software-as-a-service company hopes to bolster its client base worldwide by marrying CRM with Google's productivity apps.[13] Martin said the multi-authoring capability of Google Apps would enable several users of the system to collaborate in real time thus ensuring that everyone stayed on the "same page". For Salesforce.com customers the deal means they will be able to access services such as Gmail, Google Apps, Google Calendar and Google Talk from within Salesforce's CRM applications. The data received through these services can be integrated with customer files stored in the CRM system meaning that all customer interaction can be accessed from one location, for instance.[14] Called ''' Salesforce for Google Apps,''' the new product is available immediately at no cost to Salesforce.com customers, and includes tight integration with Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Talk.[15] Google Docs: From within the Salesforce interface, you can now create or load Google Docs. If you'''re a frequently traveling salesperson, the nicest part about this is that you can always grab the latest version of presentations, contracts, and other docs you may need quickly. It also means that teams (as defined by Salesforce) can collaborate on these documents. Google Talk: Much like Gmail'''s chat feature, you can now see a list of your colleagues or customers and chat with them from within the Salesforce interface. Like Gmail, these chats are saved, which, in Salesforce terminology means there is another customer interaction that can be tracked. Google Calendar: This integration allows you to merge events scheduled from within Salesforce or in Google Calendar into one view. Another important piece of the partnership to note is that developers can now build applications specifically for the Salesforce for Google Apps product.[15]
The Google Apps integration will enable Salesforce users to work in concert with Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk and Google Calendar. A demo provided by a Salesforce spokesman showed how users could perform various tasks, such as pushing Gmail messages sent regarding a particular customer into the appropriate place in Salesforce. Salesforce customers hailed the integration, terming it an ideal fit for their business needs.[16]
Users of Salesforce.com's online enterprise apps are about to get the option of using versions of Google's spreadsheet, text editor, calendar, instant messaging, and e-mail tools that are tightly linked with the popular on-demand customer relationship management offering. That means users will now be able to keep tabs on Gmail communication with their sales leads, create or load Google Docs from within the Salesforce interface, merge events scheduled from within Salesforce or in Google Calendar into one view, and so on.[17]
"We have a natural affinity for Salesforce customers," Google's McMullan says. "This allows us to reach them more quickly." This "natural affinity" McMullan speaks of comes from the fact that both companies have built their business models, and their subsequent base of customers, over the Web. Salesforce.com's core product is customer relationship management (CRM) software, which companies use to track the activities of their clients and manage sales and marketing leads. Like Google, Salesforce.com delivers software to customers over a Web browser and hosts the data on their own servers, a strategy often described as "cloud computing." Unlike Google, which makes an estimated 98 percent of its revenue from advertising and search, Salesforce.com has been making lots of money doing it. Since launching from a San Francisco apartment in 1999, Salesforce.com has sold its CRM product to approximately 42,000 customers and reported nearly $800 million in revenue last year.[18] One problem with the theory that Google is going to storm the Microsoft castle (MSFT) by disrupting the office-productivity-app business is that, to do so, Google (GOOG) would/will have to build a huge and expensive enterprise sales and service business. Google may still end up having to do this--which will put further pressure on margins, and the stock price--but at least the company is not crazy enough to think it can do it immediately, by itself, all in one go (or, worse, that it doesn't need customer service). By integrating its app suite with Salesforce.com (CRM), Google makes its apps more useful to corporate customers. It can also leverage CRM's enterprise sales and support infrastructure, while benefitting from Salesforce's 1mm-customer installed base.[19] Today, applications like sales quote generation and business forecasting are now easy to build and test, and can be deployed by customers with just a few clicks via the AppExchange. Appirio and Astadia are the first companies to take advantage of these new development opportunities made possible through the Google and salesforce.com partnership. Each company has developed several applications that enhance Salesforce for Google Apps, and all of these applications are available today in a newly created AppExchange category, Google Apps, at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/category_list.jsp?NavCode__c=a0130000006 P6IoAAK-5.[8] In June 2007, salesforce.com and Google launched Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords(TM), which has become a valuable tool for thousands of businesses by encapsulating every element of the customer life-cycle -- advertising, lead generation, sales, and customer support -- in one solution. In today's announcement, salesforce.com and Google are expanding their strategic alliance and delivering a second joint product to enable companies of all sizes to achieve success in cloud computing -- Salesforce for Google Apps.[8]
The products are available through the salesforce.com AppExchange, the Google Solutions Marketplace, and the Appirio website. Appirio also is expanding its Google Apps and Salesforce offerings with a new set of end-to-end services. Appirio's Google Apps consulting practice helps enterprises successfully adopt Google Apps and realize quicker return on their investments. For more information on these services, as well as recent successful customer implementations, please see the accompanying press release. Appirio ( www.appirio.com ) delivers products and services that help medium and large enterprises accelerate their adoption of on-demand solutions. As a Services 2.0 pioneer, Appirio has a proven track record of designing and implementing complex and mission-critical systems using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions such as salesforce.com and Google Enterprise.[1] Appirio offered integration and deployment services for Google Apps and custom application development products that use Google and Salesforce.com. Appirio co-founder Narinder Singh said last June that the company's approach to its own IT infrastructure "relies completely on SaaS ( News - Alert ) solutions; thus reducing out hardware, network, and software cost to a minimum."[2]
Whether that will be effective against Microsoft remains to be seen. These offerings start to bridge the gap between the tools that businesses need to run and the tools that people use to work. What's remarkable is the role that partners played in today's announcement, building on these platforms Appirio launched an expanded services practice and 4 new (mostly free) extensions to Salesforce for Google Apps, allowing users to easily synchronize calendars, collaborate on marketing campaigns, find and embed documents, and create and share customized CRM dashboards (http://appirio.com/products/index.php). This is just the beginning solutions for business, meet solutions for businesspeople.[20] Salesforce for Google Apps is a simple, yet powerful combination of essential applications for business productivity (email, calendaring, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, instant messaging) and CRM (sales, marketing, service and support, partners) that enables an entirely new way for business professionals to communicate, collaborate, and work together in real time over the Web.[8] Salesforce has just released ( see all coverage ) the long-awaited integration of its CRM applications with Google Apps, embedding email, documents, online chat and integrated calendaring directly into its core sales force automation, marketing and customer service applications. I've had advance warning of this move, as I wrote the white paper for today’s launch.[9] The worst kept secret of the last weekSalesforce.com integrating Google Apps into its CRM applications and validating the search giant's Office killer is officialbut in the grand scheme of things this partnership could be viewed as a precursor to future merger. The basic gist is this ( Techmeme ): Salesforce is integrating Google Apps into its applications. As Phil Wainewright notes : Salesforce is embedding email, documents, online chat and integrated calendaring directly into its core sales force automation, marketing and customer service applications.[21]
Salesforce noted the combination of the Google Apps suite of productivity applications and the Salesforce suite of Customer Relationship Management, or CRM, applications enables businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate in real time over the Web, without any hardware or software to download, install or maintain.[22] The companies planned to release a joint offering called Salesforce for Google Apps today, combining online customer relationship management software with productivity applications.[12] Salesforce has integrated Google's online productivity applications with its on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) offerings, Salesforce plans to announce Monday. The deal, which was the subject of rumors recently, heightens an existing partnership between the companies, marked in part by their pact to plug Google's AdWords service into Salesforce.[16] Search giant Google and on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) provider Salesforce.com have announced further integration of their respective online software offerings. Google's online desktop productivity applications - including its online email offering Gmail as well as word-processing and spreadsheet tools - will be embedded directly into Salesforce.com's CRM application, letting users create and share documents from within their CRM interface.[23] The integration of Google's suite of office productivity applications with Salesforce's customer relationship management software is intended to make it easier for Salesforce users to share information between programs.[24]
In a move designed to compete with Microsoft's Dynamics CRM software, Salesforce will make Google's word processing and office tools directly available from within its online applications. This integration will make it easy for Salesforce users to share information between programs. Email correspondence with a customer could be automatically fed directly into the CRM database, allowing the firm to keep track of deals as they develop.[25] The Google link-up essentially frees users of ties to the desktop for e-mail and document services. The wise move for Microsoft would be to try to ensure Office Live, the online complement to Office, gets a similar integration deal in order to avoid losing customers that want to be able to access these types of applications over the web. For now though Salesforce.com is remaining tight-lipped about whether such a deal is in the pipeline. Martin said any such decision would rely on information gathered through the Idea Exchange in order gauge whether customers wanted such a service to be available.[14]
The company has offered integration with Microsoft's Office and Outlook desktop applications for some time. This is the company's first foray into offering a more wide-ranging Web-based application package, cutting the ties to desktop applications. Salesforce.com says this isn't some marketing-driven move; its customers, through a Salesforce.com online forum called Idea Exchange, requested integration with Google Apps.[26]
The agreement to be announced Monday builds upon several years of collaboration between Salesforce.com and Google, which are trying to persuade more businesses to subscribe to software services over Internet connections instead of buying programs that must be installed on individual computers. The online approach, sometimes called "cloud computing," represents a potential threat to bigger software makers like Microsoft Corp., Oracle Corp. and SAP AG that make most of their money from selling individual licenses and then charging additional maintenance fees. Salesforce.com Chief Executive Marc Benioff has become cloud computing's chief evangelist since he left Oracle to found his San Francisco-based company nine years ago. He believes his preaching will resonate 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.[27] San Francisco-based Salesforce.com already sells Mountain View-based Google's (NASDAQ:GOOG) programs to about 41,000 business customers, and the new agreement is aimed at getting more businesses to subscribe to software services over the Internet instead of installing them on individual computers. The "cloud computing" approach has been touted by Salesforce.com's CEO Marc Benioff, who left Redwood City-based Oracle Corp. (NASDAQ:ORCL) nine years ago to found his new company. "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.[28]
The partnership between the two companies will also put increased pressure on Microsoft and its Office productivity software suite, which, next to the Windows operating system, accounts for a majority of that company's revenue. "We're committed to Google Apps as an offering and we're working hard to make this a new way for people to work," Scott McMullan, the lead partner at Google Enterprise, told CIO. With the move, Google will now have access to a larger pool of businesses to draw from and convince that their software, delivered over the Web, provides a compelling and cheaper alternative to Office, which Microsoft requires companies to install and run on their own machines and servers.[18] With a couple of quick moves Google's software DNA for businesses could hit the inflection point probably much sooner than everyone predicted. As an IT person in an enterprise environment I have a question: How are other companies with strict IT security policies, but also users of Salesforce.com, considering switching to Google Apps for email and such? Is all of this ready for prime-time? I would love to switch to Google Apps so I don't have to support Exchange anymore, but what about the security risks/concerns? I think our main reason for not switching to Google Apps are the security concerns with having such an important part of our infrastructure out of our control. If Microsoft's Beta version, which I consider equivalent to Google Apps, is anything to go by, then their workspace.office.live.com is the best ever. It allows to upload (goodbye flash disk!!) files ranging from Word processing to spreadsheets and etc.[20]
Software as a service provider Salesforce.com is to offer Google Apps integrated with its CRM products following 16,000 requests for the service from customers. Salesforce made the decision to link up with Google after being inundated with requests from users on its Idea Exchange forum to add the service.[14] 'In addition to providing services to hundreds of thousands of customers, we have witnessed firsthand the benefits of the cloud: Salesforce.com was one of the first Google Apps customer and Salesforce has been an invaluable tool in growing Google's business,' Girouard added. Daniels told siliconrepublic.com that the SaaS model it has been pioneering for eight years has steadily being gaining momentum and that more than one million users access its technology.[29] Salesforce for Google Apps is a PaaS offering. Because of the two APIs and Salesforce.com's Force.com development platform (I'm excluding Google App Engine because Google itself has already ruled it out for business use ), it's possible to build on top of Salesforce for Google Apps to create additional functionality and ''' most important of all in an enterprise context ''' to create workflows and business processes that flow and leverage collaboration, email and documents across multiple applications. This is potentially one of the most powerful attributes of the combination. It's worth recalling for a moment the enormous disappointment a year ago when Salesforce first unveiled its alliance with Google.[9] "My team works closely with sales so the chat, e-mail and calendaring are all intriguing. If you were to manage the consulting team calendars via Salesforce, for example, we could set up a synchronization with their personal Google calendars (which many of them use)," he wrote in an e-mail message. "That could be quite interesting and also give visibility to the sales team on when customers are scheduled." CollabNet's technical support team uses Salesforce to manage its caseload. "The collaboration and e-mail/chat/phone log with sales, support, consultants, engineering, and customers in a single case record has interesting potential," he wrote. "We can take a lot of hassle out of the system and let sales and tech support use Salesforce as their main 'portal' for day-to-day activities." Benefits like those are just the beginning, according to Salesforce. The combination of its Force.com hosted development platform and Google's open APIs (application programming interfaces) present a powerful new entry in cloud programming, the company said. "It's an application story, of Salesforce becoming intertwined with Google Apps," said Kraig Swensrud, vice president of applications at Salesforce. The situation presents "a huge opportunity" for third-party developers and independent software vendors, he added. An eager user base awaits such hybrid programs, according to Swensrud.[16] Part of the genius of the company's strategy was in picking a core application where business decision-makers have a great deal of autonomy. Sales and marketing departments tend to get what they want, and if they want Google Apps, there are very few organizations out there where IT will override them (added to which, many individuals within corporations are already using these tools unofficially for aspects of their work anyway). This is a showcase for on-demand integration. Salesforce for Google Apps is a close integration of two distinct on-demand application stacks, in which both applications can continue to follow their separate upgrade and evolution paths without breaking the integration. All the integration is based on APIs (in fact both Salesforce and Google have added some extra APIs to round out the integration). Like all APIs in the on-demand world, they've been designed to allow each application to upgrade separately. They'll also permit other applications to be linked in, making it possible to build a completely integrated suite of applications to run a whole company.[9] The announced integration looks much like what the Salesforce plug-in for Microsoft Outlook has been doing for some time, though I'd guess the plug-in likely still has more functionality. It is interesting, and it makes sense, that another On Demand software company would announce support for Google Apps. Is this the first sign of the floodgates opening? Will there be a deluge of Google App support announcements coming from other vendors? I think we'll see more announcements but doubt we'll be overrun by them, at least in the short term. While the Salesforce announcement itself isn't going to put a big dent in Microsoft product sales, it's one more drip in Google's Chinese water torture strategy to erode Microsoft's revenue stream of traditional desktop software. Like this? Here are some of Mitchell's recent posts.[30] "In a way it sounds like Salesforce wants to be able to do the same thing," said Greg DeMichillie, an analyst with Directions on Microsoft. "They want to be part of a bigger offering that includes e-mail and documents and spreadsheets." He called the Salesforce deal "a significant distribution win" for Google Apps. Smith said online business software has been adopted in large businesses from the bottom up, with individual users or departments using these products rather than companywide deployments.[12] Through AppExchange, Salesforce has a huge developer community ''' think of it like the Facebook Platform but for business users, with a lot less super poking going on. While not an exclusive deal (Salesforce.com also offers integration with key Microsoft products ), the partnership is a big win for Google, as it puts their web-based office suite instantly in front of Salesforce.com'''s thousands of big corporate users.[15] With the Micorosft Windows product running on well over 90% of the world's personal computers, the new partnership may not matter. Google's financial reports do not indicate that its Apps business is bringing in any significant revenue. As it reports numbers for the last quarter, if their is no evidence that its software operations are kicking in sales, it maybe an indication that Microsoft does not need to worry and that the Salesforce.com deal is a waste of good PR.[31]
The technology ultimately became a Salesforce.com product last year, in coordination with an agreement between Salesforce.com and Google to sell each other's products. Today's move brings Google applications -- Gmail; Google Docs, its word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software; Google Talk, its instant messaging application; and Google Calendar -- together with the Salesforce.com CRM applications. "We believe this is an entirely new way for people to work," Swensrud said.[10] For more information please visit www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO- SOFTWARE. Google, Google Apps, Google AdWords, Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, and Google Calendar are registered trademarks of Google Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of the respective companies with which they are associated.[8] According to reports, the two will reveal that Salesforce's customer relationship management (CRM) software has been integrated with Google's office apps into a single offering, dubbed Salesforce for Google Apps. From today customers will have the option of using versions of Google Apps, Gmail (Googlemail in the UK), Google Talk and Calendar with links to Salesforce that will allow peeps to do all their CRM admin under one Web-2.0 shaped roof.[32]
As someone who once worked in a sales organization that utilized Salesforce.com, and currently depends on Google Apps daily, the integration certainly appears to be something that could be immensely useful and propel Google'''s office and enterprise ambitions forward. Gmail: While previously (at least when I used it) Salesforce allowed you to send emails through their interface, you can now use Gmail natively, and have the correspondence tracked through Salesforce. This allows you, your colleagues, and your managers to keep tabs on Gmail communication with your sales leads.[15] Organizations using Salesforce for Google Apps have access to four Appirio products that combine the customer, sales and marketing information in Salesforce with the power of Google's collaboration tools. Each of these products uses Force.com and Google's open APIs to run entirely "in the cloud" without any Appirio servers.[1] Salesforce for Google Apps offers a complete way for businesses to harness the power of cloud computing without the cost and complexity of managing hardware or software infrastructure. Built by Appirio, this application is one example of a new category of partner extensions to Salesforce for Google Apps.[8] The services enable companies to take full advantage of Google's on-demand messaging and collaboration applications, while reducing migration and implementation risk and increasing user adoption. "Enterprises are turning to Google Apps as a way to improve collaboration across an increasingly distributed workforce, and refocus their IT resources on innovation, not infrastructure maintenance," said Scott McMullan, Google Apps partner lead, Google Enterprise. "Appirio has excelled by providing experience and on-demand expertise that helps companies transition faster and institutionalize this new breed of application into their organizations."[5] Google hasn't ruled out working with other partners. "We're committed to advancing the Web as the platform and partners are key to our growth, whether it's a developer doing custom applications and gadgets, a company like Appirio making calendar sharing even easier, or Salesforce.com deeply integrating Google Apps into their CRM products," said Scott McMullan, Google Apps partner lead, Google Enterprise.[26]
Salesforce.com also will be offering Salesforce for Google Apps Supported, a package that includes integrated telephone end user support, unified billing and provisioning, enhanced platform APIs, additional third party applications, and advanced Google Apps functionality, all for $10 per user, per month. This package is currently scheduled to be available in Summer 2008.[8] The full list of add-ons is at a new AppExchange category page for Google Apps. Included on the list is a potentially invaluable free utility from Sxip Identity, the Sxip User Manager, which "allows administrators to provision and manage users to both applications from a single screen" and also gives users single sign-on to the two application stacks. Henry Blodget does a good job of outlining the Innovator’s Dilemma position that Microsoft is getting squeezed into as Google Apps accelerates its penetration of the enterprise. It dovetails with my own argument outlined above and in my white paper why this combined offering will make strong headway even while people continue to argue that it can't. My ZDNet colleague Larry Dignan debates Google and Salesforce.com: Why don't they merge?[9] The switch has already resulted in higher customer satisfaction and a 1,600-fold increase in mail capacity. TSTT is now planning to offer the broader set of Google Apps as value-added services to their customers. "The Appirio team was integral in helping us bring these new services to our customers. They gave our team a better understanding of the Google offerings and the value they could bring. They also provided the technical expertise to make our migration as painless as possible," said Ronald Mohammed, vice president of information technology at TSTT. "It's hard to argue with the flexibility, cost and collaboration benefits of Google Apps compared to pricey on-premise alternatives," said Chris Barbin, CEO and co-founder of Appirio. "One of our customers predicts they'll save almost $4 million annually by moving to Gmail from Microsoft Exchange.[5]
Whether Salesforce will consider similar integration with Microsoft down the road remains open to speculation, however. Just last week IT analyst firm Gartner pointed to the proliferation of data centres built by tech giants such as Google, IBM and Microsoft to pump out CRM and web-based office apps to the masses. "Already, more and more tools and applications, such as Office software, e-mail and CRM are being served from such centres, and we can expect the range of applications and services available to grow," said David Mitchell Smith, vice president and Gartner Fellow.[32] In a move that has been identified as a challenge to Microsoft's Dynamics CRM software, the deal will see Google and Salesforce expand its ten-month collaboration. Under the agreement, Salesforce will make Google's word processing and office tools available directly from within its online applications.[24] Will Salesforce.com make a similar deal with Microsoft for Office Live, the company's online complement to Office, when that becomes a more capable alternative to desktop apps? "Salesforce.com is open to working with a myriad of office applications. What made this possible is that Salesforce and Google. both deliver native Web applications," said Kraig Swensrud, vice president of Applications at Salesforce.com.[26] Any time Google pushes the productivity applications envelope, some people look at it as another not-so-kind push against Microsoft's Office and its millions of installations. "Google Apps is quickly becoming a pain in Microsoft's side," Garett Rogers said at Googling Google, and he's likely correct. Though the formal announcement of the deal has yet to make an appearance, both Google and Salesforce published pages touting the new integration.[33] The benefits of Google'''s web-based productivity applications are obvious ''' without Google Docs, I suspect life at VentureBeat would quickly become an impossible tangle of email attachments. The new integration gives companies another reason to ditch Microsoft Office and move their word processing, spreadsheets, etc. onto the web.[6]
SALESFORCE.COM has more than doubled its customer base in Australia and New Zealand in the past six months and hopes that using Google will increase its base, but observers say the new joint service could be a white elephant. The two companies announced an expansion of their alliance to embed Google's office productivity and communications applications in Salesforce.com's customer relationship management software.[13] Under the new alliance, Google's Apps suite of productivity applications and the Salesforce.com customer relationship management (CRM) applications can be accessed for free or for a subscription.[29] The combination of the Google Apps(TM) suite of productivity applications and the Salesforce suite of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) applications enables businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate without any hardware or software to download, install or maintain.[8]
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff stated "The combination of our leading CRM applications and Google's business productivity applications pushes forward the transformation of the industry to cloud computing.[34] Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff made a typically bold yet familiar declaration in another prepared statement: "The combination of our leading CRM applications and Google's business productivity applications pushes forward the transformation of the industry to cloud computing.[16]
Now, by incorporating Google's collaboration and business productivity applications into salesforce.com's Force.com Platform and CRM applications, we believe that a new class of solutions will emerge that unite personal productivity and business systems."[1]
The long-rumored collaboration between Salesforce.com and Google is expected to be made official through an announcement this Monday. What this partnership will do is integrate Google Apps with Salesforce.com's CRM (customer relationship management) applications.[3] Updated April 14, 5:20 AM PDT to reflect official announcement. It has hardly been a well-kept secret. Now, Salesforce.com and Google have made it official: they're linking up to offer Google Apps integrated with Salesforce.com's CRM (customer relationship management) applications.[26]
SAN FRANCISCO, April 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com NYSE: CRM, the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) and Google NASDAQ: GOOG today expanded their global strategic alliance to make it easy for companies of all sizes to run their business in the cloud with Salesforce for Google Apps.[8] We continue to believe that the transition to "cloud computing" represents classic technology disruption and that Microsoft and other PC- and enterprise software companies will ultimately be in a challenging spot. This pressure won't develop overnight--for now, the Google App, Salesforce, NetSuite, contingent is small--but disruption always starts small.[19] Microsoft fans assure us that Microsoft is in great shape vis-a-vis the cloud transition, thanks to Ray Ozzie, but that it just wants to make sure it doesn't rush the products out, thus pissing off customers. We understand the desire not to annoy customers with not-ready-for-primetime products, but we also note that this problem--a high quality hurdle and incumbent customers--is just one of many challenges faced by companies in the process of being disrupted. Internet users aren't adopting Google Apps because they're better than Microsoft Office.[19] Google Apps may not threaten Microsoft's business products immediately, but as more computing shifts from the desktop to the Web, the company's vulnerability grows. "That's where the real threat is," DeMichillie said. "It's not in 2009 that Google Apps gets massive share from Office, it's 2019 or somewhere in between."[12] The quoting product offers an option to select Google Docs for output for public or private publishing of quotes to the Web. Astadia Report Collaboration gives Salesforce users "the ability to export any report to Google Spreadsheets for further analysis, and to safely and selectively share the reports with both Salesforce and non-Salesforce users," company officials say. Scott Blodgett, Astadia CTO, said his company is "building our family of integrated products for these two platforms on top of the social networking application that we released at the OpenSocial launch last November." Astadia officials say the company's social networking product, AppFactor BLOX for OpenSocial, "allows Salesforce users to view and manage the social network of contacts that exists right from within their database."[35]
The company will offer a service called Salesforce for Google Apps Supported that will include telephone support for end users, unified billing and provisioning, and additional application programming interfaces for a fee of $10 per user, per month.[26] The service, like all Google Apps products, is free to start; more robust versions cost $50 per user, per year. That may not sound exactly revolutionary, but trust me: Google Apps moving off the Web is a big, big deal.[36] Douglas Menefee is chief information officer of The Schumacher Group, a Lafayette, Louisiana, company that provides medical staffing for emergency departments. TSG works with 2,000 to 2,500 independent contractors and uses Salesforce to manage its relationships with them, according to Menefee. TSG is now starting to build out a "Google framework" involving Google Apps, he said: "It just creates a brilliant environment to deal with 2,500 individuals that aren't employees of ours, but whom we need to collaborate with." Another key factor is that TSG's contractors in most cases are granted access to the Web when on a given job, but aren't able to install software on a machine, he said. Google Apps, accessible by default through a browser, neatly circumvents this problem, he said.[16] Submitted by Mitchell Ashley on Mon, 04/14/2008 - 4:30am. I'm a bit surprised that Salesforce didn't have support for Google Apps already, given Salesforce's No Software mantra and their drumbeat for SaaS software. This is one of the strongest validations by another major software company that Google Apps has sufficient use to warrant support within Salesforce's offerings.[30]
It'''s also a big win for web based office software on the whole ''' organizations who adapt Salesforce for Google Apps will essentially be saying goodbye to the days of continually emailing around attachments, scrambling to find the latest versions of documents, and leaving tons of data (email and chat correspondence) in silos. Perhaps the question now is whether this partnership sets the stage for an eventual acquisition of Salesforce.com by Google.[15] Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said that the move was an explicit attempt to disrupt software giant Microsoft's near-monopoly in the enterprise software space. "Certainly the enemy of my enemy is my friend, which makes Google my best friend", he told the influential Web 2.0-watching blog TechCrunch over the weekend. Google says that users of its Apps suite number in tens of millions, while Salesforce.com currently has over 1 million individual subscribers using its system. The latter company recently announced that it expects to earn more than US1 billion in revenues during 2008. It has lately become the subject of acquisition rumours, with Google and enterprise software giant Oracle, where Benioff made his name, chief among the putative suitors.[23]
Salesforce.com has more than 41,000 customers, including a growing number of large enterprises. It's now saying unambiguously to all those customers that Google Apps is its preferred productivity suite.[9] "Salesforce.com was one of the first Google Apps customers, and Salesforce has been an invaluable tool in growing Google's business," said Dave Girouard, Google vice president and general manager of Enterprise. Earlier this month, Google introduced an offline version of Google Docs, and said that a mobile, offline version of Docs was also in the works.[37] "Since the launch of Google Apps a year ago, we have been following a trail blazed by salesforce.com and delivering cloud computing to business of all sizes," said Dave Girouard, Google vice president and general manager of Enterprise.[8] I know some of my ZDNet blogging colleagues are skeptical that enterprises ''' particularly the larger, most established organizations ''' will be comfortable using Google Apps. Josh Greenbaum dismisses the relevance of Google Apps to Salesforce.com users because "Google'''s terms of service severely hamper the usability of its Apps in the real world of corporate computing," a view seconded by Dennis Howlett, who also criticizes Google's release cycles : "Google is among the slowest to get things done.[9]
Salesforce for Google Apps, as the integrated product will be known, is available immediately for no additional charge to Salesforce.com users. Later this summer, Salesforce.com will also offer a support option.[10] Salesforce for Google Apps is now available as a free option for Salesforce customers. The company will roll out a version in a few months that bundles features such as telephone support, unified billing and provisioning, and enhanced platform APIs for US$10 per user per month.[16]
The Force.com Platform-as-a-Service encompasses a complete feature set for the creation of business applications and Google's open APIs enable integration and extension of the applications in Google Apps. The integration of the two creates many new opportunities for developers and partners to build and run business applications that help customers run their entire business smarter in the cloud.[8] The debut product is not entirely seamless. It does not include single sign-on to both Google Apps and Salesforce out of the box, Swensrud said. That task has been completed by a partner, Sxip, which is announcing an application Monday. Another partner, Appirio, created the calendaring integration, according to Salesforce.[16] I'd like to see more interoperability/ integration with Gears and/or openoffice.org. We been running both Google Apps and Salesforce independently so the tight integration is a sweet deal for existing Salesforce users. I see this as further evidence that SF is becoming more predatorial to the very appexchange partners it looks to recruit and develop. I find it very difficult from a business and technology standpoint to build a business on the SF model.[20] In a move seen as a "take that Microsoft" deal, Google and Salesforce padded out a current collaboration deal by integrating its Google Apps within Salesforce. Early buzz about this broader integration began when TechCrunch recently picked up on rumors about the expansion. Salesforce already had a Google AdWords management component in place as part of their previous dealings with Google, laying the groundwork for this newest announcement.[33]
Garett Rogers has been noting that Google Apps is becoming a thorn in Microsoft's side. Salesforce made the announcement via its blog overnight. Add this latest integration effort together and you come up with the following: Google is serious about the enterprise and is looking for distribution of its office suite.[21] Better to gang up against Microsoft together. Now he has the leading Web-based productivity suite baked into Salesforce. That brings up another question. If Google and Salesforce are so well suited for each other, why doesn't Google just buy Salesforce? It could accelerate the growth of Google's enterprise business and make it a little bit less reliant on advertising dollars (since Salesforce charges monthly subscriptions). You should give them a call and ask them about that. Something tells me I won't get a straight answer from them either. It is obvious that Google is thinking along the same lines when it comes to enterprise apps in the cloud. Just last week, Google launched its own marketplace for enterprise apps, which is similar to Salesforce's AppExchange.[20]
Though the company has offered integration with Microsoft's Office and Outlook desktop applications for some time now, the integration with Google's web-based suite of applications will not only give the search giant a stronger foothold among business users, but also marks an important step forward towards so-called 'cloud computing'.[17] Salesforce.com is not suggesting customers have to move off of Office either. They can make piecemeal changes, Swensrud said. "In some cases Outlook might be the right choice for a company; what we're announcing is really freedom of choice," he said. "One thing those customers can do: They may choose to continue to run their email infrastructure on Microsoft but completely embrace Google's online docs and Google Talk as corporate chat. The option will always be there for them to move into cloud computing."[10]
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Salesforce.com Inc.' s online software service is becoming a showcase for Google Inc.' s e-mail and other widely used applications, deepening a relationship that has spurred speculation Google eventually will buy its smaller partner. Besides selling Google's programs to its 41,000 business customers, Salesforce.com will integrate the suite of applications into its own service, which helps companies track and identify customers' needs.[27] The Google booth is shown at the RSA conference in San Francisco, Tuesday, April 8, 2008. Online software service Salesforce.com Inc. is becoming a sales channel for Google Inc.' s e-mail and other widely used office applications, deepening a relationship likely to revive speculation that Google eventually will buy its smaller partner.[27]
The additional applications will help make Salesforce.com's service more attractive, but "the real winner here is Google," said Nucleus Research analyst Rebecca Wettemann. "This gives them a (business) sales channel" at no additional cost. Salesforce.com also intends to sell customer support for Google's applications later this year. Reports that Salesforce.com wanted to plug Google's applications into its service surfaced nearly a year ago, triggering chatter about a possible acquisition. The takeover talk then cooled after Salesforce.com disclosed that it had merely retooled its service to make it easier for its customers to distribute their ads through Google's Internet-leading search engine.[27]
For Prasan Vyas, a director in charge of sales projects with UST Global, an IT services company based in Alisa Viejo, Calif., Salesforce.com's integration with Google apps makes Google a lot more appealing.[10] SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - April 14, 2008) - Appirio, a products and services company focused on accelerating adoption of on-demand in the enterprise, announced today that it is expanding its Google Enterprise practice by offering an additional set of SaaS strategy, implementation and change management services specifically for businesses considering Google Apps.[5] When you're moving a business of any scale to something new, it pays to take a disciplined approach to collecting business requirements and managing change. Customers look to Appirio for both innovation in addressing potential problems and peace of mind that things will go smoothly." Appirio ( www.appirio.com ) delivers products and professional services that help medium and large enterprises accelerate their adoption of on-demand solutions. As a Services 2.0 pioneer, Appirio has a proven track record of designing and implementing complex and mission-critical systems using Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) solutions such as salesforce.com and Google Enterprise.[5]
Google and Salesforce.com have announced the launch of a jointly developed product that integrates the key features of Google Apps with the key features of Salesforce.com, the leader in web-based CRM software with more than 41,000+ corporate customers.[15] April 14, 2008 -- CIO -- Salesforce.com is scheduled to announce today that it will offer Google Apps -- Google's Web-based software that includes e-mail, calendar, instant messaging, documents and spreadsheets--to its current customers for free, in a move analysts say further illustrates Google's commitment to sell its technology to businesses.[18] The companies on Monday announced that Salesforce.com's customers now have the option of using versions of Google Apps, Gmail, Calendar, and Google Talk that are tightly linked to Salesforce.com (see Techmeme for more coverage ).[26]
Google Apps are available free of charge but also as part of a paid-for Premier Edition for the enterprise market. Salesforce.com will effectively become a Google Apps reseller - when its customers opt for the paid-for edition - under the terms of the deal.[23] Boston (dbTechno) - Salesforce.com and Google have finally made a deal official, stating the two companies have joined to enhance Google Apps.[34] The end of software is here." One industry observer said the deal has clear benefits for both companies. "The corporate standard is, of course, Microsoft, but if you look at Valley and the startups, they are using Google Apps because of the collaborative aspects," said Ray Wang, an analyst with Forrester Research.[16]
The CRM specialist previously supported Microsoft Office as frontend. The addition of support for Google Apps is, according to Salesforce, a response to suggestions on its Idea Exchange customer forum.[38] "If you can get something right in the Salesforce environment without having to install anything it takes the whole thing to another level," Vyas said. "I think this will really make a lot of people sit up and take notice." While there's no chance that UST Global will rip out Microsoft Office overnight, the company would consider a move to Google Apps in the future, he said.[10]
With immediate effect, all Salesforce subscribers will be able to run e-mail, chat and Google Apps office applications directly from the Salesforce portal.[38] The post also makes a strong argument for the business value of integrating the two application stacks together. Astadia, probably the largest specialist on-demand integrator, has just issued the press release announcing its two new applications for Salesforce for Google Apps.[9] SaaS ( News - Alert ) vendor Astadia has announced the availability of two new applications, Astadia Quoting and Astadia Report Collaboration, as part of the newly-added Google Apps category on Salesforce.com's ( News - Alert ) AppExchange.[35]
Salesforce for Google Apps also leverages the Force.com platform-as-a-service and Google's open application programming interface, 'opening up even more development opportunities for developers and partners,' the companies said.[39] Google and Salesforce are officially announcing the complete integration of Google Apps (Docs, Calendar, Gmail, and Gtalk) and Salesforce's online enterprise apps.[20] With a market cap of a little more than $7 billion, buying Salesforce.com would only put a modest dent in Google'''s pocketbook, so, consider Salesforce for Google Apps an audition of sorts.[15] While the Google Apps suite will be free to access as usual, Salesforce plans to provide phone and web-based support for the tools for a monthly fee of $10 (£5) per user.[25] Google Apps will get exposure to Salesforce's one million paying business subscribers, and Salesforce in turn will become more attractive to the "tens of millions" of business users on Google Apps.[20] Salesforce users probably tote laptop computers everywhere, making the need for Google Apps less critical - if Office is already installed, Apps in-the-cloud availability doesn't really matter.[33] Salesforce does tout a few clients as Google Apps success stories currently. This is a good thing; the Office monolith will always need some competition to keep its developer teams on their toes. That's where we see the real value of the Google Apps/Salesforce expansion.[33]
Commenting on the development, Dave Girouard, Google's vice president and general manager, stated: "In the history of hosted software to date, applications could be like islands. They don't really work together seamlessly. This is a first of its kind," the New York Times reports. Salesforce is set to make a free version of Google's online office suite available to subscribers immediately and a premier version is due to be released for a charge later this year.[24] Today's announcement follows ten months of eyelid batting between Google and Salesforce. In June last year Salesforce began integrating Google's AdWords into its website, and by November it had joined OpenSocial a Google-led pact containing three APIs intended to make it easier for developers to navigate the sprawl of online services with social elements. Google's decision to expand on its partnership with Salesforce comes just months after Microsoft launched its latest CRM product, which is integrated with its own office suite. Microsoft has also been plumping up its own online office presence with the arrival, in beta, of Office Live Workspaces last month.[32] Martin anticipates similar integration options to become available with other firms' software in the near future. "We expect to see more of these kinds of link ups," he said. Salesforce expects more software providers to make their products more freely accessible to users through means such as online delivery, enabling more links between these applications. The software as a service provider has already linked up with Microsoft at a desktop level by integrating its services with Office and Outlook.[14]
The supported version will be resold to Salesforce customers on a subscription basis for $10 per user, per month, in addition to subscription fees for Salesforce's CRM software. Salesforce would not disclose terms of its agreement with Google. The companies have worked together to integrate their products.[12] I have spoken with a lot of customers who want to get off of Microsoft Word." With a market cap of $7.1 billion, Salesforce wouldn't be a small acquisitionalthough one that Google could easily affordand some of the company's products don't match up with Google pricing strategy, but its definitely a viable deal.[40]
The partnership will result in Google's new Apps software teaming up with customer relationship management offered by salesforce, in otherwards, a sheer nightmare for rival Microsoft.[41] Google and Salesforce.com are exchanging Web 2.0 friendship bands today, forging a closer relationship in the hope of directly threatening their nemesis in customer management and office software: Microsoft.[32] To be sure, Salesforce wouldn't be cheapits market cap is $7.3 billionbut Google could afford it, keep Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer up for a few weeks and take the software giant's best move off the table. I'd argue that if Microsoft really wants to get this Web thing down it should drop its unhealthy infatuation with Yahoo and buy Salesforce, Omnitures and a few others with its $40 billion plus. This merger between Google and Salesforce won't happen today, but as you read the endless coverage about Office 2.0, the computing cloud and all the other stuff keep in mind where this thing may really be headed.[21]
Google and Salesforce.com made public today one of the worst kept secrets in Silicon Valley -- they are teaming up to bring their business applications together. "Many rumors have been circulating around the Web in the last week and those rumors are true," said Kraig Swensrud, vice president of applications for San Francisco-based Salesforce.com. "Companies can run their business in the cloud with a unified set of applications from Salesforce.com and Google." This is not the first partnership of what many would call natural allies, competing with formidable opponents such as Microsoft and Yahoo.[10] This collaboration would mean that Salesforce.com would be a showcase for Google's varied applications like spreadsheet, calendar, e-mail, instant messaging, text editor etc. Apart from selling Google's programs to its business customers, Salesforce.com will let the Google applications run using Salesforce.com tools, which will help companies track and identify customers' needs.[42]
One partner, Appirio, has developed an application that links Salesforce.com and Google Calendar information together. A sales person, for example, could see that they are meeting with a client on the same day the marketing department is running a webinar and encourage the client to attend in preparation for the meeting. "Google and Salesforce are serious about collaborating and building a strong working relationship, which not only represents a direct relationship between the two of them that's formidable, but also the two ecosystems of partner organizations which extends the impact of this still further," Kaplan said.[10] Then you go on sales call and no one knows who's got the right version of the presentation." While Salesforce.com could not give an exact figure for the number of its users who are running Google applications, the Salesforce.com universe of 1 million paying subscribers and the 10 million Google applications users mean "huge numbers in the intersection and a huge opportunity to expand beyond that intersection," Swensrud said. Don't expect this partnership to be the end of Microsoft Office applications.[10] The deal also means Google gets access to Salesforce.com's sales team, "who, by the way, were able to convince businesses that online applications are the way to go," says Rebecca Wettemann, a vice president and analyst with Nucleus Research.[18] We're not willing to go that far. It's another feature for Salesforce.com and it should boost sales somewhat for Google. It does indicate that one of the looming challenges for online software may not be so challenging after all. Businesses spend a lot of time and money making changes to the systems they've bought so that they can access the same data.[43]
BOSTON (Reuters) - Salesforce.com Inc, a maker of business software for tracking sales calls, on Monday started integrating its products with Google Inc's e-mail service.[44] Starting today, workers will be able to move information between Salesforce.com's customer-management software and Google's email, spreadsheets, calendar and other applications just by clicking a button. Previously, it was up to individuals to do this manually. Later this year, Salesforce.com will start selling and providing technical support for Google's products.[43]
Until now.) The move further reinforces Google's street cred with the smaller shop. Love or hate the Google product, it's tough now to dismiss Larry and Sergey's efforts to compete with Microsoft MSFT, Sun JAVA, ZoHo ( www.zoho.com ) and the rest of the small-business productivity players. Before we all get gushy-eyed about Google Apps, let me offer a very serious word to the wise: I have been using the program in its various incantations for well over a year in my little digital world.[36] Taking the product offline removes a major barrier to entry for many small businesses. Google Apps in its current form is slick and all, but 24/7 Web access is by no means a gimme here on planet small biz.[36]
You won'''t be able to accomplish much that you couldn'''t do before, if you were using Salesforce and Google Apps separately, but integrating the products should make things a lot easier.[6] Product manager Kraig Swensrud, who has been closely involved with the project, described the Google Apps components to me as 'first-class citizens' within Salesforce.com. This will spread faster than people expect or realize.[9]
Salesforce.com customers will have the option to use versions of Google Apps linked to the site.[34] Telecommunications Services of Trinidad and Tobago (TSTT), a telecommunications company owned by the national government and Cable & Wireless, is another Google Apps success story. They recently tapped Appirio to migrate 93,000 customers from a costly proprietary email system to Gmail.[5] Areas of expertise include CIO and business strategy, customer service and support, Force.com development and Google Apps deployment and integration.[1] The end of software is here." They will not charge for the integration with Google Apps, it will be free for customers.[34]
There is a bit too much Googling goin' on. Last week, mondo software giant Google GOOG announced that its online-only suite of word processing, spreadsheet and presentation software, Google Apps, would step off of the Web and onto desktops around the globe. The Mountain View, Calif., company is augmenting its family of office-productivity software by slowly releasing a version that runs offline -- that is, when your computer is not connected to the Web -- over the next several weeks. (Download the Google Gears app here, ( http://gears.google.com/ ), then wait for a prompt to appear in your version of Google Docs, probably within a week or so.)[36] I personally have three. One is tied to my indispensable 10-year-old mindspring.com email accounts. One is tied to my Gmail identity, which I need in order to have a Google Docs account. One is tied to my partners on my radio show, all of whom have a few Google Apps accounts of their own -- as do my contractors, my vendors, my customers.[36] The viral effect within enterprises is going to be significant. Once one or two people within a workgroup start sending others links to view and share their Google Docs documents, it'''ll reinforce usage of the online apps by everyone in the same group. They'''ll also share documents with colleagues in other departments and with partners, customers and prospects, exposing many more to the experience of using Google Docs.[45]
You can't do that with online software ' the tech company manages the data and makes all the changes to the software. Google and Salesforce have figured out how to share data between their systems nonetheless.[43] By tapping into Salesforce's customer base and latching on to that company's reputation as a trusted corporate technology provider, Google can make inroads in selling its software to businesses.[18] The programs have long been available for free from Google. The advantage of accessing the Google programs through Salesforce, which distributes its software over the Web, is that customers will be able to automatically integrate information from the Google documents with data entered into their Salesforce accounts, the companies said.[44] Google's Gmail - as well as its word processor, spreadsheet and other office productivity programs - were scheduled to be available to Salesforce customers on Monday morning, the two companies said in a press release.[44]
The package will not require a download or installation as it is available over the internet. Although users of Google's and Salesforce's programs can already use the services side by side, they will now be able to make use of additional functions. Customers will be able to keep a record of emails sent to customers, with such information stored directly on customers' sales records.[24] In June 2007, salesforce.com and Google launched Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, which encapsulates elements of the customer life-cycle -- advertising, lead generation, sales, and customer support -- in one solution.[22]
Salesforce.com will also sell customer support for Google's applications later in the year, the companies said.[28] What does that mean? An e-mail response from a customer can be appended to the customer information stored within Salesforce.com, meaning that all customer interaction can be accessed from a single place, for instance. That dynamic applies to Google Talk conversations and other applications, too.[26] Integration between the two on-demand platforms allows users to push Gmail messages and Google Talk conversations into the Salesforce.com application to, for example, share information about a lead, Swensrud said.[10]
Despite the hoopla I remain skeptical. When I put those criticisms to Armstrong on Friday, he wouldn'''t be drawn, stressing that, '''What we'''re announcing here is fundamentally a reseller agreement.''' Google evidently won'''t be rushed on resolving these defects until it becomes convinced of the need, which may put a brake on announcing larger deals. That's not good enough. Whether any of us like it or not, IT departments that have invested huge amounts of time, effort and money in securing desktops and email systems are not going to stand idly by and let users do whatever they want without exercising oversight and compliance. Salesforce.com's permissioning controls from inside its applications go some way towards that, but IT departments will want to know a lot more before sanctioning a wholesale switch. That re-introduces the ToS argument Josh and I have used although I accept those same arguments will be less of a concern for the smaller business where such matters are frequently overlooked. Assuming Phil and others are correct about adoption, this then opens up another can of worms around fracturing'' suppliers in business critical application areas.[45] Salesforce.com will provide support for Google premier applications for a charge of $10 per user per month. Google and Salesforce.com will also bring together their development partners.[10] The Salesforce.com partner had launched a series of Google Gadgets for Salesforce.com that integrates iGoogle with Salesforce.com's CRM application and platform.[2] "The combined offering from salesforce.com and Google brings together the best in enterprise CRM and productivity applications, all delivered over the Internet.[8] Customers can use the two new Astadia applications to add quoting and report collaboration to the suite of CRM, collaboration, and business productivity applications.[35]
Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in Software-as-a- Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The company's portfolio of SaaS applications, including its award-winning CRM, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that customers manage and share business information over the Internet.[8]
Apache servers dominate like 50% of market, and you say Apache is dominant; Google dominates 70% of search querries, and you say Google rules. It would not shock me to see Google buying this company, Saleforce.com, to make it the centerpiece of their office strategy. They need a core business application to build around, something that is web-based already, and something that drives subscription revenue. Salesforce is perfect for them.[19] Henry, I think you misread the manner in which Google is going to disrupt Microsoft's business. People who use Google Apps are not the low end of the market; far from it, almost to a person they will have the resources to use Office, should they choose to do so. What distinguishes them and their usage of GApps is the WAY they use it.[19] No one will mistake the feature set of Google Apps with Microsoft Office or Exchange just yet, and we are motivated to think a small to medium sized business using Office probably counts its Microsoft licenses as a business expense, lessening its cost impact.[33] I'm starting to see Google Apps complement Microsoft Office, much in the way that the microwave oven complemented traditional ovens.[43] Google Apps are, by almost any objective measure, worse than Microsoft Office.[19]
The objection over functionality, in my mind, is short-sighted, given the track record of success by ''' good-enough ''' disruptors throughout the history of the IT industry. Google Apps may be somewhat less stuffed with functionality than those from Microsoft, but they are free - and for many organizations (not all, of course) that will be '''good enough'''.[45]
Salesforce for Google Apps also leverages the Force.com Platform and Google's open APIs, opening up even more development opportunities for developers and partners.[8] Salesforce for Google Apps enables us to extend our company's SaaS strategy even further," said Doug Menefee, CIO of The Schumacher Group.[8]
Appirio has announced four new Software-as-a-Service offerings that bring together Google ( News - Alert ) Apps and Salesforce CRM.[2] In June last year, Salesforce entered into a strategic agreement with Google to provide tighter integration between Salesforce CRM applications and Google's advertising and tracking resources.[42] Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentation can be created from within Salesforce's CRM application.[20]
Google Adwords was incorporated into the application, besides letting Salesforce customers get sponsored placement within Google.[42] While Oracle was rumored to be considering a buyout of Salesforce last month, nothing seems to have materialized, and it would seem that the company'''s impressive roster of customers would be much more valuable to Google, who is still a relative newcomer to the enterprise space.[15] Why just target Microsoft? Frankly it should be a lot more competitive against the much more expensive on-premise Oracle, SAP and other products. There comes the sobering reality - because Google has so much else going on and salesforce has been more focused recently on its force.com platform strategy, their combined functional footprint in the enterprise has not evolved much in the last year, and absent a few acquisitions will not grow much any time soon. When it comes to vertical extensions their footprint is negligible.[45] The Google product competes with Microsoft's (NADDAQ: MSFT ) word processing, spreadsheet, and presentation products. Google's software runs off of its servers while Microsoft's uses the memory and processing power of the customer's PC or handheld.[31]
BOSTON, Apr. 14, 2008 (Thomson Financial delivered by Newstex) -- Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) Inc. and Google Inc. (NASDAQ:GOOG) Monday said they have expanded their global strategic alliance and will deliver a second joint product to make it easy for companies to run their business in cloud computing.[39] Salesforce.com and Google's alliance has created the world's largest cloud computing platform for building and running applications.[8]
Daniels said Salesforce.com and Google have been working on projects together since 2003 and share the same views on how the cloud computing model should grow.[29] Salesforce.com and Google have more in common than a passion for cloud computing. Both companies have cultivated fun-loving cultures and set up philanthropic foundations funded by a portion of their profits. The stocks of both companies have soared more than fivefold since their initial public offerings in 2004.[27]
Salesforce.com's support pricing for Google Apps premier edition doesn't exactly torpedo support pricing from elsewhere although it goes some way towards it when taken in aggregate with cloud storage.[45] The integration with Google Apps is something our clients have been asking for," Salesforce.com chief marketing officer George Hu said.[13] For similar reasons I would not be surprised if Google is not looking at Intuit. Intuit's QuickBooks Online Edition (OE) could use a similar kind of integration with Google Apps. They both sell into mostly (for now) the SMB space.[20]
David Armstrong, product and marketing manager for Google Enterprise in EMEA, told me yesterday that Google Apps already has half a million organizations ''' not individuals, organizations ''' signed up worldwide, with 2000 more signing up every day. That astounding adoption rate is visible only to Google.[9] The biggest PITA in doing group work is getting everyone together to do the work. Google Apps allows groups to function together while significantly lowering the need to meet together in the same room; whereas a group project might have required in the past several multi-hour meetings, you could now reduce them to one or two shorter meetings, with people working in their own space and contributing to the group 'document' as their schedules allow. Google Apps is pretty basic in its offering currently, but it's not necessary for a group to produce a finished product. They can get the information right, and then one member of the group can import the data into a finishing app and get the look and feel right. Working like this saves money and time, so it is convenient.[19]
Henry, we've heard those argument for ages from the Google fan crowd, but you should also consider that there ARE free alternatives to MS Office available today, most notably Openoffice. Even this development, which is much closer to MSFT's original product line, did not disrupt MSFT in the low-end markets. Certainly there are users of Openoffice, but would these guys have purchased an Office suite? Probably not. I can not even envision that a COO of a Fortune 500 company will hand over their most valuable data to Google. They won't trust Google to (a) have the same degree of availability, and (b) to have the same degree of security. Not mentioning Google's ability to spy on them. It will be several years until MSFT will be disrupted.[19] The Google Talk integration is just as compelling. The ease of storing and sharing documents along with prospect records will make people want Google Docs to become the system of record for sales and marketing documents, even if they still use MS Office to create and edit the originals ''' but many users will feel just as comfortable working natively in Google Docs.[9] Looking through the various demos and online videos Google and Salesforce have done a stunning job integrating the workflows that are inherent in sales and marketing operations. Hats off to them.[45] As illustrated in a Salesforce online demonstration, appointments made in Google Calendar and sent using Gmail can be sent directly to the Salesforce database and multiple colleagues can collaborate directly on a presentation using Salesforce and Google Presentations.[38] Google, Google Apps, Google Docs, Google Calendar, and Google Start Page are trademarks of Google Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.[1]
What does Google's China activities have to do with privacy? I thought that had more to do with state censorship. I agree that fortune 500 companies are not going to go moving their data to Google Apps. That was not my point. Yeah this deal simply makes too much sense not to do.[20] Bottom line: Google Apps is useful to the small business. It is a fabulous and free way to create content, but shuttling your entire business document stash over to Google just because you can do a few things without being connected to the Web would be a major error.[36] Google Apps was suitable for enterprises and small to medium businesses, Mr Hu said.[13] Google Apps is a clutter-magnet of almost epic proportions. Its great strength -- and its great weakness -- is that it is free. That means it is far, far too easy to create multiple Google Apps accounts.[36] The problem is that Google Apps launches from the by-now ubiquitous white search-engine homepage that is the Google brand.[36]
The Google productivity apps are free unless a company wants to upgrade to the premier edition (which includes added security and management features) for $5/user/month.[20] Google and Salesforce have deepened their existing relationship, presenting a more formidable challenge to Microsoft's suite of productivity software.[11] The Salesforce and Google approach to selling software bypasses the traditional desktop and server model that Microsoft has dominated. Software as a service, or SAAS, eliminates the need for on-premise servers and IT departments to maintain them.[12] Salesforce sees some synergy and a nice add on. Both companies view themselves as a platform-as-a-service player and could collide at some point in the future. Wouldn't it make sense for these two companies to merge? I always figured Salesforce would wind up with Oracleor even Microsoft or SAP. However, Google would also be a very logical acquirer. Last week, I noted that IT execs are very interested in what Google can do in their companies. They're just not quite sold yet and are wary of depending too much on Google's cloud. A purchase of Salesforce would get these IT fence sitters off the fence rather quickly.[21]
Dave Girouard, the general manager of Google's enterprise division, tells us it took a handful of developers a few months to make it so Salesforce's and Google's systems could exchange data. If Google had bought Salesforce or if the two companies had announced that they were merging their systems into one giant system, it would have sent shockwaves through the business-software world.[43] Internet giant Google ]] Google is set to extend its partnership with enterprise applications firm Salesforce, it has been revealed.[24] Dave Girouard, who oversees Google's applications, also declined to comment about the company's interest in buying Salesforce.[27]
'''In the history of hosted software to date, applications could be like islands,''' said Dave Girouard, Google'''s vice president and general manager. '''They don'''t really work together seamlessly. This is a first of its kind.''' Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.[41] The big concern is protecting confidentiality of data. It cannot happen with Google as it collects and retains all information created and distributed via its applications which can be data-mined by one clever enough to do such. This solution is unwise for businesses who do not want to share strategic data with competitors.[43]
All the programs are hosted over the Internet, which Google views as an advantage because users can access the applications from any computer with an online connection.[27]
Later today, the first integrations built in that way will be announced by three partners of Salesforce.com and Google, and it'll be a key message of the launch. As Google's Armstrong told me, "We're really excited about the opportunities this creates for the developer community to build a set of applications, tools and integrations that we can only imagine."[9] Martin described closer links between Google software and Salesforce.com applications.[4]
Built on Salesforce.com's Force.com platform, and Google's ( News - Alert ) open APIs, Astadia Quoting and Report Collaboration are immediately available for test drive and deployment.[35] Salesforce said the new product, which is available today to all salesforce.com customers at no additional charge, expands the strategic alliance between the companies.[22] This definitely must have the folks at Microsoft plotting their next move. With the combination of these two platforms - there is little reason for MS Office products. For small business they have put together a the primary tools most need to operate. The only thing I wish Salesforce would do is drop their prices for startup companies or businesses operating under 5 people.[20] Microsoft is building on a strategy it calls "software plus services," emphasizing that an important role still exists for desktop software. A strong point for Microsoft's Dynamics business applications is their integration with Office and other major business products.[12]
Robin Daniels, senior manager in charge of product marketing at Salesforce.com, told siliconrepublic.com that the deal will effectively mean teams of business executives can collaborate and share in the creation of mission critical documents, without having to download or install hardware or software.[29] The deal is expected to boost Google's potential by providing it with a business channel, free of cost. Google has in the past used Salesforce.com's tools to further its possibilities.[42] By announcing the Salesforce.com deal, Google is trying to eat into Micrsoft's revenues, majority of which come from selling individual licenses and then charging additional maintenance fees.[42]
By creating a first-mover advantage for themselves, Google can position itself to dominate a market it has more or less 'created'; not too far from what MS did a generation ago. This is the true threat that Google poses; it is building the foundation to change the game, not the rules. It won't happen overnight, but it will likely happen. Err what perplexes me in this deal is that larry Ellison has a significant stake in salesforce.[19]
On the Appirio blog, Ryan Nichols has introduced the four applications being launched today by the Salesforce and Google integrator.[9] A worker can access data stored by Salesforce through an application run by Google.[43]
"The end of software is here." Salesforce last year announced that it would integrate its Group Edition offering with Google AdWords.[37] Last year, Google collected less than $200 million from software licensing while raking in $16.4 billion from advertising sales.[27] With annual sales of $749 million, Salesforce.com currently has a market value of more than $7 billion. That's well within the means of Google, which has a market value of $145 billion and $14 billion in cash.[27]
Shares of San Francisco-based Salesforce.com closed Friday at $61.09, while shares of Google closed at $457.36.[39] Salesforce.com is currently trading at $59.08, down $2.01, and Google is trading at $452.60, down $4.85.[22]
Internet search giant Google and software-as-a-service leader Salesforce.com are combining two products to take on Microsoft.[12] Google is on the right track. There is quite a bit of churn in the lower end market what with people being dissatisfied with what Microsoft has been doing with their browsers and operating systems. Google can make the first big, big inroads into this market if they play their cards right. The question will be whether Google can wring enough performance out of their products to make a difference.[19]
There aren't many other solutions that give people the ability to distribute and source work, so Google has scored a huge win. Anyone wishing to compete with them will have to create a superior product to get customers to switch.[19]
Campaign Management - Lead & Opportunity Management - Account / Subscription Management - Customer Interaction Management - Order Management -. Communicate best practices and design recommendations for partner platform development using Google APIs, such as AdWords and Checkout.[4] Salesforce.com is a provider of customer relationship management or CRM services, which is a customer-centric business strategy with the goal of maximizing profitability, revenue, and customer satisfaction. Technologies that support this business purpose include the capture, storage and analysis of customer, vendor, partner, and internal process information.[42] Salesforce.com is the global leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) and over 35,000 customers rely on it.[3]
As of January 31, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 41,100 customers including ABN AMRO, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel, and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. [8] Salesforce customers will have free access to the new services, and within a few months, the company is expected to unveil another version of the service that will include telephone support for end users, unified billing and provisioning for a $10 monthly fee.[3] The idea is to provide Salesforce users with Web-based, real-time collaboration tools from Google like e-mail, calendaring, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and instant messaging.[37] Expect lots of questions about whether Google and Salesforce will be doing more to team up against Microsoft. I'''m sure someone will ask Benioff if Google will buy Salesforce, and I'''m equally sure his response will amount to, '''No comment.'''[6] "By having a partner like Salesforce who has far more of a positive reputation in meeting enterprise requirements, Google can only win," says Tom Austin, a Gartner analyst.[18] You nailed one of the most important elements of this announcement-- the power of bringing together the platforms of Salesforce and Google for partners.[15]
After watching so many tech companies align themselves in a partnership, before one ultimately buys the other, I'd be more shocked if we didn't see Google acquire Salesforce, than vice versa.[40] The two companies refused to make a confirmation on the latest rumors according to which Google allegedly further intended to buy Salesforce.[3]
Ironically, Saleforce.com was founded by Marc Benioff, former Oracle executive, one of the companies threatened by the collaboration. The agreement also seems to be Google's latest move in the seesaw battle for one-upmanship between the internet search giant and Microsoft, which had shaken up Google's stock prices with the announcement of its intention to buy search engine Yahoo (YHOO).[42] I also love the integration of Google Talk for presence and IM. One of the things we see in our enterprise surveys is the top requirements are around collaboration."[10] To be more precise, it will include Google's e-mail service, Gmail, chat service, Google Talk and Calendar.[3]
Google has defended its policy of retaining user data for longer than six months claiming that it is crucial in order to improve search engine results. Google has made a change to its Google Docs service, allowing users to edit documents while offline.[46] I love it!! I've started to use Google Docs a lot more lately and I only see it getting better now that they're integrating with SalesForce.[20] Salesforce has long included routines for monitoring advertising campaigns which make use of Google ads, and this may well have helped foster goodwill among Google strategists.[38]
Google and Salesforce have already partnered to make Google AdWords available in Salesforce.[6]
Five people could work on building a presentation using Google Apps using the same version and it will stay on the internet. [29] Google Apps is a great small-business tool. It should not be your only small-business tool -- at least not yet.[36]
If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed. It is being reported that the search engine giant Google is set to announce a partnership with Salesforce.com. [41] The two vendors have partnered around each company's respective philanthropic organizations, and several years ago Salesforce.com bought Kieden Corp., a company, founded by Swensrud, that integrates Salesforce.com with Google AdWords.[10] "Salesforce.com and Google have changed the game again. This is, hands down, the best example of the consumerization of the enterprise. This is revolutionizing the way people work," said Sheryl Kingstone of the Yankee Group.[8] The collaboration functions that Google brings to Salesforce.com are a significant step, according to Sheryl Kingstone, director for customer-centric strategies with the Boston-based Yankee Group.[10] Again, the collaboration has also fuelled rumors of a possible acquisition of Salesforce.com by Google.[42]
Last June Appirio announced it had joined the Google Enterprise Professional program. The program "extends the power of Google across the enterprise and helps customers get more value out of their Google enterprise deployments," Appirio officials said at the time. [2] For Google, the move could provide a stronger foothold among business users, Wang said. "Google is already quite pervasive, but they want to be more pervasive in the enterprise."[16] Google's targeted advertising program provides businesses of all sizes with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users.[8] Founded in 1998 by Stanford Ph.D. students Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google today is a top web property in all major global markets.[8]
"Imagine, all of my important data in the hands of some of the best programmers in the world, at a company with a pretty good privacy record. You gotta be kidding me! Google have a pretty good privacy record? The same company that caved into China demand. I doubt Fortune 500 or even mid level companies would want any companies to have their private data.[20]
I have spoken with a lot of customers who want to get off of Microsoft Word. I really didn'''t want to compete against Google in an area they consider core.[20]
"There is still a big trust issue, rightly or wrongly," Wettemann said. Google offers free basic versions of its applications and charges an annual fee of $50 per worker for a deluxe package with more options.[27] Atleast GoogleApps offers the free version or low priced model, but SaleForce has a fixed price for everyone of $50 + per user /per month. That is where a Google acquisition might be nice, since Google could offer multiple pricing levels.[20]
Even when it does, there seems to be no development strategy or roadmap that discerning buyers can assess. That'''s not comforting to business buyers." When I put those criticisms to Armstrong on Friday, he wouldn't be drawn, stressing that, "What we're announcing here is fundamentally a reseller agreement." Google evidently won't be rushed on resolving these defects until it becomes convinced of the need, which may put a brake on announcing larger deals. [9] Google's suite of applications includes word processing, spreadsheets, calendaring and instant messaging, as well as e-mail.[27] Great article. It will be interesting to see what this does to Google Enterprise offerings. Competition is always good, and salesforce/Google will garner it's fair share of attention.[20] People tell me that in five years Google will own the enterprise.[45]
Sales events and marketing campaigns can be overlayed onto a Google Calendar (see screen shot below), as well as colleague's schedules for figuring out convenient meeting times.[20] With one click, sales people who use Gmail can send any email correspondence with potential or existing customers to Salesforce, where it becomes recorded as part of the sales cycle." That's a cool feature.[20] With a passion for quality and experience earned from thousands of client initiatives, Astadia consultants positively impact the sales, marketing, customer service and employee performance efforts of clients around the corner and around the globe.[7]
The company's Force.com PaaS enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful on-demand applications that deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy across the enterprise. [8] In case you missed it: SAP Chairman Hasso Plattner and Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff squared off at the Churchill Club a few weeks ago and caused quite a enterprise software dust-up. We recapped the debate at the time and questioned whether Benioff was overestimating his company's platform.[21] Cloud computing relates to the way a software company designs, builds, deploys and runs applications that operate in a virtualized environment, thereby helping the applications achieve maximum scalability, performance, and reliability.[42] Two of the biggest names in online software will make their products work with one another, a move designed to make so-called cloud computing ' where people access software over the Internet through a Web browser ' more appealing to businesses.[43]
'There is a major push for cloud computing applications as executives increasingly opt to use the internet for applications and services. 'It also means the traditional days of working between businesspeople ' where they had to keep multiple versions of document files ' are numbered.[29]
Salesforce.com, in the past, has offered similar integration with Microsoft Office as well as Outlook. This is the first time they have branched out though for Web-based applications. [34] When Salesforce.com first offered Office integration capabilities about five years ago, it made life much easier for the company.[10]
Late last year Salesforce.com had about 1000 customers in Australia and New Zealand.[13] Swensrud expects that a "huge" percentage of Salesforce.com's customer base will be interested in the new feature.[26]
Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM".[8] "While salesforce.com has always enabled us to work easily with client desktop productivity tools, we love that we now have the freedom to run our office in the cloud," said Prasan Vyas of UST Global.[8]
Salesforce and the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.[8] Side note to Paul: Salesforce over valued? Perhaps, but the company remains the poster child for software as a service. That's an enviable position.[43] WSJ.com's business-technology blog focuses on the technology that businesses use -- the hardware, software, services and know-how that can make or break a business -- and on the people who deploy that technology.[43] An Introduction to Networked Storage This paper provides an introduction to the basics of networked storage and its relevance to smaller business operations where storage specialists are typically not found. It discusses the origins and development of the latest advances in storage tec. VMware Solutions for Small to Medium Businesses Small and medium businesses (SMBs) are always looking for new ways to optimize their existing IT investments. VMware equips SMBs with technology that allows them to cost effectively optimize the use of their existing IT assets and resources as wel.[16]
More than 500,000 businesses and millions of people use the programs, according to Google.[27]
Currently a beta version of the joint venture is in circulation, and the entire idea was brought about by users of the site. Benioff added that with the joint venture, people will be more able to use services that are relative to everyday computer related tasks, meaning that they are offering a solution that is better suited to the computer user than is Microsofts' Office.[41] By summer, Salesforce will be reselling the premier edition itself for twice as much'''$10/user/month'''and will throw in telephone support and put everything on one bill. You'''ve seen what we have been doing is slowly integrating all of our services with theirs.[20] In addition to customer demand Salesforce also saw the move as a way to help speed up business processes.[14] 10 Salesforce.com customers have tested the integration in a beta test mode, said Swensrud.[26] If Salesforce.com recognizes that vendor management is fundamentally no different to customer management then it will be interesting to see what happens to the adoption curve.[45] "Customers were asking for it and we're very much about giving customers choices," Woodson Martin, vice president of strategy with Salesforce.com for EMEA told ENN.[14]
'Traditional software vendors are worried. He cited Japanese bank Japan Post as an example of an organisation which has acquired 60,000 licences to deploy Salesforce.com to build custom applications.[29] Applications built on the Force.com platform, available at http://www.force.com/, can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.[8] Reuters is the world's largest international multimedia news agency, providing investing news, world news, business news, technology news, headline news, small business news, news alerts, personal finance, stock market, and mutual funds information available on Reuters.com, video, mobile, and interactive television platforms.[44] Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff tells the Business Technology Blog that the agreement changes the balance of power in the business-computing world.[43]
Let's not forget that similar criticisms were advanced a few years back as reasons why enterprises weren't going to adopt CRM from unproven on-demand vendors like Salesforce.com.[9] Though, how many different Web platform companies can co-exist? A Google-Salesforce combo could sew up the Web platform for enterprise apps.[20] "The younger generation is demanding an easier-to-use application. They don't need all the bells and whistles enterprise applications bring together today. They need to do what they do quickly and collaborate with colleagues. They're all about the Web and putting things online and the last thing we want to do is push them into a siloed desktop environment, because we want to promote what they do best."[10]
'The web model means quicker development of new software. We have a partner called Coda which created financial ERP software on Force.com in two years less time than if they did using.Net or java. They don't have to worry about security or administration, they just do it,' Daniels said.[29] Some customers have already tried it out via beta test mode. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages.[34]
The Shelton, Connecticut headquartered company said under the terms of the definitive merger agreement Greenfield Partners will acquire all of the outstanding common shares of Clayton Holdings for $6.00 per share, or about $134 million, plus the repayment of $23.8 million of debt.[42]
Taking the plunge: Opportunity knocked and this entrepreneur rushed in. He didn't change his sales strategy. He changed his client strategy. Charles Myers bootstrapped his company after staggering losses on a business deal gutted the company'''s capital. Now Myers takes direct involvement in each project and lets someone else handle what had primarily been his role, business development.[28] With annual sales of $749 million, the San Francisco, California based Salesforce.com currently has a market value of more than $7 billion.[42]
From your article: "Businesses spend a lot of time and money making changes to the systems they?ve bought so that they can access the same data. That is NOT true when it comes to salesforce.com. It is easier to change salesforce.com than regular software.[43] One feature automatically logs e-mail sent to a customer in the CRM software. Another overlays marketing events on an individual's calendar.[12]
Other investors included New Enterprise Associates and WPP, a marketing services company.[26]
When it takes just a mouse click to open Gmail and have the message saved with the prospect record, it won't take long before Gmail becomes the default email system for most Salesforce users. [9]
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1. Appirio Delivers Four New Software-as-a-Service Offerings to Accelerate the Adoption of Salesforce for Google Apps
2. CRM Apps for Salesforce, Google Announced by Appirio
3. Salesforce - Google Apps Integration To Get Microsoft In Trouble
4. Google and Salesforce team up - ZDNet.co.uk
5. Appirio Expands Google Enterprise Practice With Services for Google Apps Implementations
6. Desktop applications beware: Salesforce integrates Google Apps | The Industry Standard
7. Astadia :: New Astadia Products for Salesforce for Google Apps Now Available on Salesforce.com's AppExchange
8. Salesforce.com :: Salesforce.com and Google Introduce Salesforce for Google Apps - First Cloud Computing Suite for Business Productivity
9. Salesforce and Google team to conquer the enterprise | Software as Services | ZDNet.com
10. Google and Salesforce.com form alliance
11. Salesforce to Sell Google Apps; Microsoft Officially Challanged - MarketingVOX
12. Microsoft | Google, Salesforce take aim at Microsoft | Seattle Times Newspaper
13. Salesforce plan: thoroughbred or white elephant? | Australian IT
14. ENN - Salesforce and Google Apps link up
15. Google Takes Aim at the Enterprise: Announces Salesforce for Google Apps
16. PC World - Business Center: Salesforce Announces Integration With Google Apps
17. Google, Salesforce join forces for business apps - TechSpot News
18. Analysis: Salesforce's Addition of Google Apps Shows Google's Intent to Enter Business Software Market - CIO.com - Business Technology Leadership
19. Google-Salesforce Deal Shows Google Not Insane, Microsoft Disruption Continues - Silicon Alley Insider
20. More Details On The Google-Salesforce "Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Friend" Alliance
21. Google and Salesforce.com: Why don't they merge? | Between the Lines | ZDNet.com
22. RTTNews - Breaking News, financial breaking News, Positive EPS Surprises, Stock research .
23. Salesforce.com and Google extend partnership | Information Age
24. Google and Salesforce expand collaboration
25. Google and Salesforce sign CRM package deal - 14 Apr 2008 - Computing
26. Google, Salesforce link up for business apps | Tech news blog - CNET News.com
27. The Associated Press: Salesforce.com becomes sales channel, showcase for Google software applications
28. Salesforce.com showcases Google Apps - Silicon Valley / San Jose Business Journal:
29. SiliconRepublic.com: Google and Salesforce.com in cloud computing deal
30. Google + Salesforce = Increased Google App Usage | NetworkWorld.com Community
31. Salesforce.com (CRM) to help Google (GOOG) to sell software - BloggingStocks
32. Google and Salesforce snuggle up with biz apps | The Register
33. Google, Salesforce Tie Up With Apps | WebProNews
34. Salesforce Adds Google Apps Integration In Deal With Google : dBTechno
35. CRM Vendor Astadia's Apps Now For Google, Salesforce.com
36. Google Apps Are No Gift to Small Biz | Small Business Solutions | GOOG JAVA MSFT - TheStreet.com
37. Salesforce Integrates With Google Apps - News and Analysis by PC Magazine
38. heise online - Google Apps cosies up to Salesforce
39. Salesforce.com, Google expand strategic alliance to deliver joint product
40. Google Salesforce.com Lovefest - Get a Room Already!
41. Google Teaming Up With Salesforce.com | Chatter Shmatter - Breaking News From Around The World
42. RTTNews - Breaking News, financial breaking News, Positive EPS Surprises, Stock research .
43. Business Technology : Cloud Watching: Google and Salesforce.com Band Together
44. Salesforce adds Google e-mail, office programs | Technology | Reuters
45. Salesforce.com and Google opens more cans of worms | Irregular Enterprise | ZDNet.com
46. Google teams up with Salesforce.com
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