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Apr-15-2008Biz break: Salesforce.com teams with Google to woo customers from(topic overview)
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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. [1] 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.[2] 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.[3]
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.[1] 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.[4] Salesforce for Google Apps is a simple, yet powerful combination of essential applications which enables businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate. Salesforce for Google Apps is a new alliance that both companies hope will create the world's largest cloud computing platform for building and running applications. Applications such as 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.[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 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.[7] 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.[8] "The real value is that now you can run your entire business in the cloud," said So. Microsoft is preparing to roll out Dynamics CRM Live, an on-demand version of its Dynamics CRM software that will see the vendor employ its time-tested strategy of pricing competitors out of the market. Microsoft, which raised hackles last year by revealing plans to sell CRM Live directly to end users, will give partners a recurring 10 percent margin on subscription fees for all customers they refer. Microsoft CRM partners told ChannelWeb they're not overly concerned by Salesforce for Google Apps, but some admitted they plan to keep an eye on the offerings that emerge from the relationship between the two companies.[9]
The newest nail in the coffin? The integration of Google Apps into Salesforce's customer relations management service, as outlined by Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff (pictured, left), Google chief executive Eric Schmidt and others, who also offered jabs at software giant Microsoft. There was a lot of mutual love in the air Schmidt and Google Enterprise Vice President Dave Girouard both said that Salesforce's software-as-a-service business model paved the way for Google Apps, especially for turning Apps into an enterprise-level offering. Benioff, meanwhile got personal, describing Schmidt as a longtime friend who he can rely on. What they didn't get into were many specifics about how, from the business side, the Google-Salesforce partnership will work.[10]
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.[11] Rebecca Wettemann of Nucleus Research told me that the difference between a Google and Microsoft solution on Salesforce.com differed by a couple orders of magnitude, and that the Salesforce.com alliance gives Google a sales channel. She also noted that companies should take a tiered approach; some users might need Excel and others could do fine with just the spreadsheet in Google Apps. This locking of arms by Benioff and Schmidt should force Microsoft to show its hand sooner than later. On April 24 in San Francisco it plans to offer more details on its Live Mesh service, which reportedly synchronizes data between a variety of devices. That won't quell the call for a nearly free cloud-based, collaborative suite of applications as Salesforce for Google Apps gets some traction.[12] The integration, the first major news to emerge from an alliance the two firms announced last June, meshes CRM, a popular business application, and Google Apps, Google's email, spreadsheet, and word-processing applications. The deal fills in missing pieces for both companies as they continue to face off against Microsoft in the Microsoft-dominated business applications market. With Microsoft's mature sales and support structure along with its standing army of partners and its own on-demand CRM product, CRM Online, in the works, Google and Salesforce face a daunting task. "We don't see this integration having major impact on Salesforce, Google, or Microsoft," said Rob DeSisto, an analyst with Gartner.[13] 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.[14]
"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.[15]
"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." Both salesforce.com and Google have noticeably altered the software landscape by delivering SaaS applications, for CRM and productivity respectively, over the Internet. As of Monday, 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.[5] '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.[16]
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.[17] 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.[18] "I'm sure that there's a ready market for the Google/SalesForce integration of technology. I also believe that the there is another substantial customer set that will find the rudimentary functionality of Google Apps to be inadequate for their business requirements," said Ritsema. Yacov Wrocherinsky, CEO of Infinity Solutions, New York, says the announcement helps create more awareness for the CRM industry as a whole, but he doesn't believe the Google-Salesforce partnership will ever threaten Microsoft's position in the market. "Microsoft still owns the stack, and they're not going away. I don't see a lot of people using Google Apps for business and commercial tasks, and I don't envision that everyone is going to trust Google to do those things." Daniel Duffy, CEO of Valley Network Solutions, a Microsoft Gold partner in Fresno, Calif., agrees with the idea that some businesses won't feel comfortable entrusting Google with their email, calendar or business documents. "The industry likes to beat on Microsoft, but honestly, Google has their own challenges with customer privacy and data retention issues," said Duffy. "I believe that as more people embrace these sorts of services, we're setting ourselves up for an eventual nasty surprise when this data is compromised or abused."[9]
Third-party add-ins, like one from Appirio, add the capability to, for example, synchronize appointments and tasks between Salesforce and Google Calendar. These are all capabilities that echo things that can already be done with integration among Microsoft Office, Microsoft Dynamics CRM and ERP, SAP ERP systems, Oracle's Siebel CRM, and even Salesforce.com itself. While the work done to combine Salesforce and Google Apps has Microsoft and others to thank for its legacy, it also represents a fundamental departure from most of those previous integration efforts.[19] 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.[20] DataPipe - Personal Touch, Global Reach. After weeks of speculation, the companies revealed today the details of their new offering, Salesforce for Google Apps. Customers will now be able to decide among using versions of Google Apps, Gmail, Google Talk and Calendar with links to Salesforce that will enable them to perform all their CRM admin under a single Web-2.0 portal.[21]
The imaginatively named Salesforce for Google Apps service blends Salesforce CRM with Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk, and Google Calendar. Salesforce is offering the service to subscribers free of charge, and this summer will introduce a $10-a-month supported version that includes end user phone support, unified billing, enhanced APIs, and wider access to third party applications.[9] Salesforce is offering a service called Salesforce for Google Apps Supported that includes user telephone support, unified billing and provisioning, and additional premium application services for $10 per user, per month. There is no question that the move was made squarely with Microsoft and its Office franchise in mind, although there is some disagreement over whether businesses will spring for the ability to word process anytime, anywhere at the risk of losing all their data due to a server malfunction.[22] 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, added third party applications, and advanced Google Apps functionality, all for $10 per user, per month.[5] 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.[4]
More importantly, bringing everything together in a single package and a single interface creates a real incentive for businesses to make "a hard commitment" to doing business in the Internet cloud, Girouard said. It could be particularly important in getting bigger companies an area where Goolge Apps is still trying to make inroads to make the switch. Executives from both companies also made it clear that they're targeting Microsoft. In some cases, the digs were implicit, if not exactly subtle, as when Benioff said "the standard bearers of the old industry" (read: Microsoft) were too busy protecting their "cash cows" (read: Office) to offer any decent software-as-a-service. Sometimes the antipathy was little more open, as when Benioff said he isn't interested in a similar integration with Microsoft: "The last I heard, Microsoft Live was dead." Benioff also touted Google Apps' integration into Salesforce's Force.com platform, where developers can build applications and sell them via Salesforce's AppExchange.[10] "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.[8] The companies planned to release a joint offering called Salesforce for Google Apps today, combining online customer relationship management software with productivity applications.[8] The companies said the combination of the Google Apps suite of productivity applications and the Salesforce suite of customer relationship management applications will enable businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate without any hardware or software to download, install or maintain.[23]
In October 2006 Google introduced Google Apps, a suite of free personal productivity applications targeted primarily at consumers and schools. The Mountain View, California-based search firm has sought to extend its Google Apps market to businesses with Google Apps Premier Edition, a higher-end, for-pay, version of the original. San Francisco-based Salesforce, which previously announced the integration of its CRM application with Google's AdWords, can benefit from the strength of Google's name and the growing popularity of Google Apps.[13]
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.[4] 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.[24]
Salesforce has also built a connector to create customer reports in Excel and a piece of software that can use Outlook to send or add customer contacts to Salesforce's customer database. Since Google Apps and Salesforce are integrated within the browser, users don't have to switch between applications like they'd have to do with Salesforce's integration with Office and Outlook. Admits he doesn't use the Outlook connector much anymore because he struggles to keep the small app up-to-date and some Outlook patches have caused the plug-in to crash if it isn't on the latest version. Salesforce for Google Apps cuts those binding ties.[19] "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.[25] 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.[26] 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.[27] 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.[27] 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.[25] The integration of Google Apps will give Salesforce users access to Gmail, Google Docs, Google Talk and Google Calendar. The advantages will go both ways, as the two companies will equally benefit from the deal. "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," Ray Wang, an analyst with Forrester Research, said.[28]
Salesforce customers will be able to access Gmail, Google Apps, Calendar, and Google Talk from within Salesforce.com CRM applications. This isn't a new function of Salesforce.com.[29] 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 Salesforce's CRM (customer relationship management) applications with integrated Google Apps.[29] The two companies are finally joining forces, as Google Apps are now integrated with Salesforce.com's CRM (customer relationship management) applications as, according to Google CEO Eric Schmidt, the companies have "always had similar models and philosophies."[28]
Customers using Salesforce.com's customer relationship management (CRM) solution now have access to the Google Apps office productivity suite within the Salesforce.com platform.[30] 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.[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.[31] 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.[25]
The announcement follows ten months of collaborative iniatives between the two companies. Last June, Salesforce began integrating Google's AdWords into its site. Then in November, Salesforce joined OpenSocial, a Google-led initiative that contains three APIs designed to enable developers to more easily navigate their way through Web-2.0 applications. Microsoft has been making its own moves in customer relationship management, starting with last December's launch of its Dynamics CRM 4.0, which is integrated with the Microsoft Office suite. This was only expanded further by last month's beta release of Microsoft Office Live Workspaces. It is still unclear as to whether Salesforce will consider similar integration with Microsoft in the near future. COMMENTS Be the first one to comment on this article.[21]
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.[20]
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.[29] 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.[15] 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.[18]
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?[4]
The new combined solution is called " Salesforce.com for Google Apps." It's available today for free to Salesforce.com customers. This integrated solution now squares off with Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online, Microsoft's own hosted platform.[30] Salesforce has belatedly recognized that it is important to link CRM apps to productivity tools. It has been core to our product since we launched five years ago. It validates our strategy. Really these comments are more icing on the cake. The real meat of this news is that Google and SalesForce.com will collaborate to make their solutions better. The companies will integrate more effectively and work hard to ensure their solutions that can stand up against products from Microsoft and other competitors.[32] A click on the sponsored link brought us to an ad on the Salesforce.com Web site for a CRM white paper. "Independent research comparing companies using on-demand CRM to those using on-premises CRM show better overall performance for the on-demand customers," according to an online blurb on the Salesforce site. While fending off competition from Google, Salesforce, and a variety of other sources, Microsoft has undergone integration pains over the past few years in formulating its own CRM/ERP line-up, forged out of acquisitions of myriad third-party vendors, including Axapta, Navision, Great Plains Software, and Solomon. In a conference call last December, a Microsoft official indicated that sales of its Dynamics line-up have been much stronger on the CRM than on the ERP side of the house.[33]
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.[4] The integration of Salesforce's CRM application and Google Apps create significant business benefits including the ability to share business data with colleagues or customers in popular Google Apps.[13] Salesforce for Google Apps is a simple, yet powerful combination of essential applications for business productivity including email, calendaring, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, instant messaging while CRM enables an entirely new way for business professionals to communicate, collaborate, and work together in real time over the Web.[5] 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.[34]
Google, which does not have an extensive list of business applications, gets a much-needed entree into the on-demand business apps market through Salesforce. "This is targeted at Microsoft Office, and the sweet spot for Google/Salesforce is lowering the total cost of ownership for large enterprises and giving deep integration to SMBs with Google Mail which is very popular," said Sheryl Kingstone, an analyst with Yankee Group.[13] Maybe. In the meantime, though, Google has gobs of money and can afford to test whether Salesforce will give its apps greater entree into the business world. (And if the experiment blossoms into a success, expect the "Google to buy Salesforce" rumor to again make the rounds.) When I asked Benioff after Monday's press conference whether he believed Google's application suite was better than Microsoft Office, he kept a straight face and said yes. Give a good salesman his due but at this point Google's apps don't really need to best Microsoft in a feature-by-feature competition.[35]
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.[27] 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.[36]
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.[31] Documents and proposals can be shared using the collaborative aspects of Google Apps. Sometime in the summer of this year, Salesforce.com plans to offer a supported version of Google Apps along with a supported version of Salesforce.com for $10 per user per month, according to an online presentation given by Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Salesforce.com.[30]
The new service is currently available without charge to existing Salesforce.com customers. A premier edition called Salesforce for Google Apps Supported will be available this summer for $10 per month per user.[37] Any third-party app designed for Salesforce's AppExchange platform will automatically integrate with Google Apps. Salesforce customers will get Google Apps for free, though they'll have to pay $10 per user, per month, for a service called Salesforce for Google Apps Supported, which will include telephone support, unified billing and provisioning, and additional application programming interfaces.[38]
April 14, 2008 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Google ( google.com ) and Salesforce ( salesforce.com ) announced on Monday they have expanded on their existing partnership by integrating the Google Apps into Salesforce's service customer management and office software.[21] Salesforce for Google Apps is a combination of the Google Apps suite and the Salesforce suite of Customer Relationship Management (CRM) which enables businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate without any hardware or software to download.[5] 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.[2]
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.[17] The longer answer is more complicated. Google's agreement to integrate its office productivity applications with Salesforce's customer relationship management software obviously is a big deal.[35] Google and Salesforce.com on Monday announced the integration of Google's web-based suite of personal productivity applications and Salesforce's web-hosted customer relationship management application.[13]
Some of the same benefits exist between Microsoft's Outlook and Salesforce's CRM application, Mr. DeSisto said, so the Google Apps/Salesforce CRM integration is simply Google playing catch-up. "Salesforce.com has made a very late recognition of what has been our strategy all along to marry CRM applications with personal productivity tools," said Brad Wilson, general manager of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. "This is trailing edge stuff from Salesforce.com."[13] Though upgrades work differently, one of the things Salesforce.com for Google Apps and previous integration efforts have in common is the initial development cycle. Salesforce.com and Google had been discussing integration of the two companies' CRM and productivity technologies since at least 2006, when they announced that Salesforce.com users could use Google's AdWords ad platform. A team of developers had been working on the integration since last fall, and despite the easy integration promise of open APIs that's been advanced by both companies, much of the work, including the development of single sign-on user authentication, was done with non-public specifications. "This is not insignificant work here, especially with unique capabilities like single sign-on," So said.[19] 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.[29]
"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. Earlier this year, Salesforce tried to acquire AdventNet, parent company of Google Apps rival Zoho, Sridhar Vembu, co-founder and CEO of AdventNet, wrote in a Monday blog post.[39] 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.[27] Now we will watch to see how Ray Ozzie defends the door to keep the competition away from cash cows." SIA agrees : "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."[40]
Customers can investigate a growing list of third-party applications being built to integrate with Salesforce for Google Apps on the AppExchange section of Salesforce.com's Web site. TSG is now using Google Apps to create "a brilliant environment to deal with 2,500 individuals that aren't employees of ours, but who we need to collaborate with," he said.[37] Sheryl Kingstone, an analyst at Yankee Group Research Inc., said that Google Apps needs better word processing, presentation and spreadsheet applications in order to persuade corporate IT managers to take the product seriously. And, she added, "that's not what Salesforce can teach them." Chris Kanaracus of IDG News Service contributed to this story.[37] 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.[25]
Salesforce's integration with Google Apps isn't the first time business and productivity tools have been combined to create an uber-business application.[19] 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.[18] 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.[11] 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.[11] According to Girouard, Google Apps, at $50 per user per year, has 10x better economics than a well-provisioned suite of Microsoft Office products, which would include some administrative support.[12]
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.[20] Although there are many third party vendors offering add-on solutions to SharePoint, we haven't seen any office productivity software integration other than MS Office. It's unlikely you'll ever see the likes of Google or Xythos provide integration points. What's the chance that Microsoft has a team already hiding in some dark corner of the office working on a solution that will take Office online? They did it with SharePoint, recognizing the need of many of their customers to have a " SharePoint as a service " offering. This SaaS deployment does still offer integration with "desktop" Office software; however, one can see the potential and the dollar signs for Microsoft to go the online route. Never one to spill their secret plans until the last minute, we'll probably just have to wait and see what Microsoft does in the future with its Office suite.[41] The next layer up from there is something that I refer to as the live platform services layer. These are services that are designed specifically to serve the needs of apps, of our apps predominately, that targets individuals and very small businesses, unmanaged users. These are generally ad-monetized applications and because of that, there's synergy in sharing data and features among the apps at this level. So they all share many, many of these services. These are services like identity services, contact lists, this is the layer where our social graph of your relationships lives, your presence and rendezvous, communication services. Perhaps most importantly, our advertising platform infrastructure lives at this level. Whether it's hosting our Live offerings for individuals or our service-based offerings that are more targeted for enterprises, or apps that are partners or customers will provide--this platform will ultimately be used by and will benefit all of the audiences that we as Microsoft serve because each audience is undergoing some transformation that's relevant to them from software-based solutions to software plus services, or services alone." Until now, Microsoft could be its deliberative self and take its time figuring all this out.[35] My sources maintain that promoting Salesforce as the new industry platform isn't in the cards. When he addressed financial analysts last summer, Ozzie offered an idea of a future of multilayered services where massive data centers underpin a cloud infrastructure services layer upon which all of Microsoft's online services would run. "Among other services, this fabric has an efficient and isolated virtualized computation layer. It has application frameworks that support a variety of app models that are designed for horizontal scaling. It has infrastructure that manages the automatic deployment and load balancing and performance optimization of the apps that it's managing running on its infrastructure. It also supports several types of horizontally scalable storage types like files and database and searchable storage that are needed for different types of apps that you put onto this platform.[35]
Salesforce is a leader in "software as a service" (SaaS), which is referred to as "cloud computing" because programs are hosted online instead of installed and maintained on users' machines. Google vice president Dave Girouard said the alliance is unquestionably a shot across the bow of U.S. software giant Microsoft, which has built its fortune selling packaged software such as Office and Outlook. "We don't wake up in the morning at Google and say 'How are we going to get Microsoft," but they are going to feel an impact," Girouard told AFP. "We expect this to be part of a new era of computing.[42] 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.[24]
Customer management n' more from Salesforce and Google: Salesforce.com will combine its customer-management software with Google's Internet-based applications in a challenge to Microsoft's Office software.[43] The joint offering bolsters Google's efforts to compete with Microsoft Corp's (MSFT.O: Quote, Profile, Research ) Office and e-mail software, the world's most widely used business programs. Salesforce will also actively promote Google's programs to its more than 41,000 business customers, Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff said in an interview.[44] Salesforce plans to begin incorporating Gmail, Google's e-mail pro'ram, as well as its word processor, spreadsheet and other office programs, into the Saleforce.com sales management software suite aimed at business workers. Salesforce customers will be able to import information automatically from Google e-mail and documents into their Salesforce accounts, the companies said.[44] 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.[3] "Google and Salesforce.com have always had similar models and philosophies about delivering innovations made possible by the Internet," said Google chief executive Eric Schmidt. "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." The Google-Salesforce alliance is a boon to both companies, according to Silicon Valley analyst Rob Enderle.[42]
InfoStreet is pricing at $10/user/month, way under Salesforce.com. It worries me more that Eric Schmidt, Google's CEO seems to think the two companies have a real shot at defining the next iteraton of applications computing. "We now what it takes to build this next generation of services," he said. "You need a company with values," he said, citing the social responsibility leadership of salesforce.com. Importantly, he said, salesforce.com figured out the model for making money selling services from the cloud. "That model is the defining model of new computing cloud age," he said, and it is "a 20 or 30 or 40 year vision."[45] Coincidentally, Microsoft is launching on Monday the first day of the free 30-day trial of Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4. Schmidt also gave his take on the alliance of Google and Salesforce.com. "We know what it takes to build this next generation of services," he said. "You need a company with values," he said, citing the social responsibility leadership of Salesforce.com. Importantly, he said, Salesforce.com figured out the model for making money selling services from the cloud. "That model is the defining model of the new computing cloud age," he said, and it is "a 20- or 30- or 40-year vision."[12]
Now the question is whether enterprises will be attracted to the merged clouds. Salesforce.com is eating its own dog food, moving its entire company to Salesforce.com for Google Apps. It's a viable, and extremely low-cost, alternative to Microsoft Word, Outlook, Excel, and related products.[12] 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."[8]
When a smaller company has a larger company's product as a "loss leader," the situation is inherently unstable. Now, Salesforce can aim for an entire company's employee base for Google Apps, not just the CRM users, but then such a deal would marginalize the CRM component in the whole equation (both from a revenue perspective as well as from the effort expanded to win the deal). It is hard to see Salesforce marginalizing its own product in order to sell the Google suite."[35] "Salesforce costs $700-1,000 per year per user, more than 10x Google Apps subscription cost. When Salesforce resells Google, if it confines itself to its CRM user base, even assuming that it retains the entire Google Apps subscription cost, it is at best a 10% improvement. It is almost a loss leader for Salesforce."[35] Salesforce for Google Apps, on the other hand, is available now to all Salesforce users without any download and will be free if unsupported or $10 per month per user if supported. "In the offline world, it would be virtually impossible to make this available to users immediately," So said. "They'd have to all wait in line or spend millions upgrading to the latest version of the software and then download something additional." That said, much of the integration of functionality has been done before.[19] In a dinner theater setting at the Four Seasons in San Francisco, Salesforce.com's Marc Benioff and Google's Eric Schmidt officially rolled out Salesforce for Google Apps, the integration of Google Apps, Gmail, Calendar, and Google Talk with the Salesforce.com platform, in 15 languages.[12] Salesforce for Google Apps lets users send and receive Gmail e-mails, create and share Google documents, and instantly communicate via Google Talk -- all from within Salesforce.com.[19]
Salesforce for Google Apps is available as of Monday to all salesforce.com customers at no extra charge.[5] The software, called Salesforce for Google Apps, is available today at no additional cost for existing Salesforce.com customers.[43] 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.[27] This partnership between Salesforce and Google to integrate Google apps with Salesforce.com could mark the future of software.[46]
Earlier today Google and Salesforce.com officially announced the expanded partnership of Google apps and Salesforce'''s online enterprise apps, the result of a 10-month-old collaboration between the two companies.[22] Google and Salesforce.com have actually been collaborating to thwart Microsoft's online CRM efforts for some time now. Salesforce.com has been one of the few large companies publicly committed to integration with Google Apps since its introduction in February 2007.[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.[24] 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.[34]
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.[18]
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.[25] 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.[14] 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.[25]
Salesforce for Google Apps is a simple, yet powerful combination of essential applications which enables businesses to effectively communicate and collaborate without any hardware or software to download.[5] 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.[15] 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.[27] 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.[8] 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.[3]
Salesforce.com's CRM application integrates with Google App's calendar, e-mail and instant messaging applications. Users can have their e-mail activity automatically tracked within Salesforce.com's CRM application, preserving communications associated with sales activities.[30] Proof of the power of these two platforms is the role that partners played in today's announcement Appirio launched 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 ([[ ).[47]
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.[4] Salesforce will offer Google Apps free and market a premium service in which it provides technical support for 10 dollars monthly per employee using the applications.[42] 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.[4] '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.[16] Eric Schmidt, Google's chairman and CEO, also provided comments during the official Google-Salesforce.com announcement. He added some context, describing how "cloud computing" is supplanting "the old model that all of us grew up with." He noted that while the software-as-a-service concept has been worked on for more than 20 years, "we now know what it takes to build this next generation of services." Salesforce.com -- founded nine years ago -- has been at the forefront of this cloud computing effort, Schmidt added. "They figured out first with Salesforce automation, and now with the broader platform play, how to actually self-service and even do the traditional service level agreement," he said. "That model is the defining model of the cloud computing age because it's how people will make money."[30]
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.[25] 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'.[26] 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.[29] In addition to the obvious synergies between the two companies, the real winner here is Google. The deal strengthens gives Google an outside spokesman (Benioff) for its applications. Benioff has proven to get under the skin of the competition and he seems to drive people crazy. This sort of news could have the potential to unite more Microsoft competitors. It would be interesting to see Adobe, Apple and RIM somehow get involved and say they, too, will work with SalesForce.com and Google. Microsoft for its part has a big advantage in the CRM space due to its UC push and its market mindshare.[32] 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] Looking forward to learning how Google Gears may eventually help make this a potent competitor to Microsoft Office. Our company does less than a quarter of our productivity work in the cloud, but announcements like this could change that quickly.[27] 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 the 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.[48] No longer having Tom Siebel to go after, Benioff has resorted to blasting Microsoft ( News - Alert ). Last month, our number one competitor surrendered, and decided to take its place beside several former competitors at software's Shady Pines Rest Home, also known as Oracle ( News - Alert ). It was a merciful outcome for shareholders, but a time of con"fusion" for customers. 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.[32]
During the last days of March, Microsoft's own hosted CRM product, Dynamics CRM Live, took on the new name of Dynamics CRM Online, in a move to expand the target market of the Microsoft-hosted service from SMBs to the enterprise space. Microsoft is being more careful now to distinguish "Live" as its consumer online brand, with "Online" as its more professional online brand. It also sells licenses for packaged CRM software, and its CRM offerings are already integrated with Microsoft Office.[33] Today, Google helped Salesforce.com pour more fuel onto the fire of its already heated rivalry with Microsoft's Dynamics CRM Online, a software-as-a-service product rebranded by Microsoft late last month.[33]
While Oracle and SAP teamed up with Microsoft to piece together client applications, Salesforce.com and Google are entirely online. "It's really about running your entire business in the cloud," Clarence So, Salesforce.com's chief marketing officer, said in an interview. That model brings with it, for example, an ease of availability unmatched by the likes of Microsoft and SAP's Duet system.[19] Sure, an operating system and installed software are still important in a corporate environment the exact place that Windows still is, and will remain dominant for some time, but as companies (and business in general) evolve, to think that anyone in 10 to 20 years will be using the same desktop computers running the same basic operating systems is foolish. Many people have issues about their data going up to the "cloud" (the term used for the large server farms that companies like Google and, yes, Microsoft employ).[49] 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.[25] 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 ).[29] 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.[4] For customers who need offline capabilities, Salesforce.com provides support. Dave Girouard, general manager of Google Enterprise, said that Google is committed to making all of its apps available offline via Google Gears. (Google Docs currently has offline support.)[12]
The clouds are beginning to merge," Schmidt said. Google has even changed its tag line to reflect its investment in applications, from search and ads to search, ads and apps. Are they? In contrasting Salesforce.com's approach to that of Google. Google is our principal competitor, yet neither their team nor ours had any issue at all integrating - it was obvious to us this is the right thing to do for customers.[45] Salesforce.com, Inc., makers of the Customer Relationship Management suite, and Google, Inc. have announced a global strategic alliance to make it easy for companies of all sizes to run their business in the cloud.[5] 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.[23]
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.[50] 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.[3] BOSTON/SAN FRANCISCO, April 14 (Reuters) - Salesforce.com Inc (CRM.N: Quote, Profile, Research ) and Google are deepening a year-old alliance by forging links between Salesforce software for managing sales leads and Google e-mail as well as other office tools, the companies said on Monday.[44]
Clarence So, chief marketing officer at Salesforce.com, San Francisco, says the deep integration between Salesforce and Google is the result of the two companies' similar approaches to delivering applications and services over the Internet.[9] Within larger companies where I've seen CRM implementations, integration with any office-type documents wasn't critical to the normal workflow. It may be different with SalesForce.com, though. If there is logical coordination there, this could be a pretty big deal. If there isn't a connection beyond the "enemy/friend" relationship, I can't imagine this being anything more than another sales-via-exposure channel for Google to find it's way into the enterprise. Either way, Google wins in this deal. If it's the former, both Google and SalesForce win. If it's the latter, I'm not sure how SalesForce benefits. I expect they didn't buy Salesforce because that would mean committing to SF as their "official" enterprise solution. They want to remain open to other partners who might be SF competitors (e.g., 37signals), and not drive those potential partners into the arms of MS/Yahoo or Zoho.[18]
Google and Salesforce are officially announcing the complete integration of Google Apps (Docs, Calendar, Gmail, and Gtalk) and Salesforce's online enterprise apps.[18] Someone did ask about about the details Salesforce's and Google's revenue sharing (basic Apps integration is free to Salesforce customers, but the company will eventually start charging $10 per customer per month for a premium service).[10] 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 wouldnt be a small acquisition"although one that Google could easily afford"and some of the companys products dont match up with Google pricing strategy, but its definitely a viable deal.[51] Google shares were off $5.79 at $451.66. Using products from Salesforce and Google will reduce the need for corporate customers to store information on their own computer systems, but won't eliminate the need for them to maintain their own in-house data centers.[44]
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.[11] Menefee said that Schumacher won't use Google Apps to store or transmit patient data until it determines that the hosted offering meets HIPAA security requirements. Google execs have recently sought to dispel customer concerns about the security of its hosted applications.[37]
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.[23] At the least, one wonders if there will be crossover between the Salesforce App Exchange, and the newly launched Google App Engine. At this point, it seems a plausible scenario, and we'''re keeping our eyes peeled for more integration between these two companies.[22]
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.[27] In all the excitement around the Google and Salesforce.com tie up, an email turned up from Sridhar Vembu, Zoho's CEO. He claims that Salesforce.com is operating a 1990's business model and that the partnership will end in tears. Why should this matter? Salesforce.com has clearly put a lot of effort into integrating Google, is providing assurance and has done a commendable job of making it easy for Salesforce.com users to pick up on Google Apps.[45] 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.[18] 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.[34] 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.[34]
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.[34] "Most organisations are using Microsoft Office or Lotus Notes. I don't think just because they're integrating with Google Apps there's going to be a fundamental shift to using Google," Mr Prentice said.[17]
I'm starting to see Google Apps complement Microsoft Office, much in the way that the microwave oven complemented traditional ovens.[47]
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.[11] Google Apps are, by almost any objective measure, worse than Microsoft Office.[11]
"Salesforce has belatedly recognized that it is important to link CRM apps to productivity tools," Wilson added, according to the Times ' account, titled "Google and Salesforce Join to Fight Microsoft."[30] Google and Salesforce have deepened their existing relationship, presenting a more formidable challenge to Microsoft's suite of productivity software.[7]
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.[8] Google "Apps" including email, calendar, and document writing will be included in software services offered by Salesforce, which essentially serves as a for-hire technology department businesses use via the Internet.[42] 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.[15] Either way, the future certainly looks rosy for the Google and Salesforce partnership ''' so much so, in fact, that it has led to speculation that Google may outright purchase the customer relationship management software company.[22]
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.[20] The agreement may boost efforts by Salesforce.com and Google to wean business customers off Microsoft's dominant Office programs.[43] 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.[48]
E-mails sent to customers via Google's mail application will be connected to customer records in SalesForce.com. While this collaboration is great, there are still companies worrying about how to maintain security when vital corporate data is stored on the servers of another company. Perhaps this move will manage to make customers more comfortable with the hosted approach, since Google has a strong reputation and helps boost SalesForce.com's credibility. The company didn't really needed it, but having such a large partner would help anyone. The hidden gem in this news is the likelihood that Google Gears will be used to allow SalesForce.com to function in the event of a Web outage.[32] The presentation, officially unveiling the new integrated application, was available on Salesforce.com's home page. Benioff said that Salesforce.com customers have been requesting integration of Google's applications, such as its mapping capability, since as early as 2006. He added that the "standard bearers of the industry" have not come forward to meet such demands.[30]
Salesforce.com will also sell customer support for Google's applications later in the year, the companies said.[48] 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.[47]
Benioff wouldn't say, and Girouard only noted that Google focuses on developing products first and figures that "business will follow," which makes it sound like Google's cut isn't very large. Last year, we wondered whether Salesforce has much to offer Google, but this deal seems like a win for both companies.[10] Microsoft is pressuring Yahoo to accept a 44.6-billion-dollar cash and stock offer or face a hostile takeover effort. "This is why Google likes the Microsoft-Yahoo wrestling match, because it can move forward while its rivals are occupied," Enderle said. Google and Salesforce made their first SaaS alliance last year, triggering speculation the Internet search king might buy the fast-growing firm founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff in 1999.[42]
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.[52]
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] Google could run Zoho just as easily (and without integrating it into Docs - different products for different markets), making the Google Cloud (aka, App Engine) the back end of everthing - just like Windows is today. If Google can get enough of the premier online app providers (such as Saleforce.com, but others as well) to port to Google App Engine, then they become the standard. They'll be built into the infrastructure of the web, and even if they start to lose Search market share to some startup no startup will be able to replace their world-wide super-computer.[18] 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.[4] 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.[31] App customers will be a lot stickier. I expect that within two years AppExchange will be closed and both Saleforce.com will switch over to AppEngine. Salesforce.com will stand to save big $$$by letting Google do what they do so well. I would be interested to hear from SalesForce.com users if this is a value-add.[18] Appirio, for example, is offering a campaign timeline for Google Calendar, a CRM dashboard widget that can be viewed on Google's personalized home page, and an app that allows users to search for specific Google documents within Salesforce.com.[19] Whitely noted that the service does not currently feature integration with the Google Sites collaborative Web site development tool. The CRM vendor said that its Salesforce.com Web portal has added a link to a page providing information on the joint effort, and to a form where users can order the joint offering.[37]
Specifically, starting today, Salesforce.com's CRM Online service is tightly integrated with Google's online word processing, spreadsheet, and e-mail applications suite.[33] April 14, 2008 (Computerworld) Salesforce.com Inc. today said it has integrated Google Inc.' s hosted e-mail, instant messaging, calendaring and spreadsheet applications with its CRM service.[37]
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.[52] 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.[11]
Salesforce will not charge customers for the Google office applications, which have long been available for free to Web users.[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.[50] 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.[50] 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.[47] 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.[47] The software combines Salesforce.com's programs for tracking customers and sales leads with Google's online word processing, spreadsheet, e-mail, and calendar programs, San Francisco-based Salesforce.com said in an e-mailed statement.[43]
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.[53] Corporate customers can use the Google on-demand tools to improve collaboration and bolster workflow among sales and marketing operations, said Sean Whitely, senior director of applications for Salesforce.com.[37] 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.[15]
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.[29] Integrating Gmail, Google Docs, Google Calendar and Google Talk opens up some new functionality to Salesforce customers all of your Gmail and Google talk correspondence relating to a particular customer can now be stored in Salesforce, for example.[10]
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.[4]
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.[11] There's some interesting talk in air these days around office productivity suites and the move to using purely web-based products. Some predict the end of Microsoft if they don't make the move to a SaaS offering. Other reports show something completely opposite. The ReadWriteWeb posted an interesting article the other day in which they reported that some Gartner analysts are indicating "a tipping point in 2011, when the majority of these applications will be OS-agnostic, such as Web applications" and that Windows will play a much smaller role on the desktop. Richard MacManus of the ReadWriteWeb tends to agree reminding us of his own predictions back in late 2005 when he predicted that web-based office applications would become the future "may be 5-10 years down the track, it may be longer."[41] To make matter worse or better, depends on who you ask the fact that there are over one million SharePoint deployments out there only helps Office sell that much better. In the same report, it's stated that the number of SharePoint deployments over the next year is almost the same. SharePoint is a product that is not going away and its tight integration with MS Office only helps Microsoft keep their productivity software in the enterprise.[41] 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.[8]
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.[18]
I should note that the Zoho products also compete against offerings from Google and Salesforce. I later spoke with Vembu, who argued that the companies' different pricing models, not to mention their different corporate cultures, will put a strain on the nascent partnership.[35] 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.[24]
In a search on Google earlier today, using the keywords "Microsoft CRM Live," BetaNews turned up a sponsored link dubbed "Microsoft vs. Salesforce."[33] The Google-Saleforce partnership is likely to continue to raise the level of competition in the CRM market, but is less of a near term threat to Microsoft, says Frank Lee, president of Microsoft CRM specialist Workopia, San Francisco. "Salesforce and Google haven't reached critical mass yet, and they've got a long way to go," said Lee.[9]
Microsoft Office and Oracle's Siebel CRM application have had some of the same functionality as Salesforce's integration with Office since 2003, when Siebel 7.7 allowed users to synchronize Outlook contacts, calendar records, and to-do lists with Siebel.[19] Dynamics CRM Online is already integrated with Microsoft Office productivity suite applications, including the Microsoft Outlook scheduler and e-mail program.[30] "I think the announcement is a belated recognition by Salesforce that the world of CRM and personal productivity need to come together," Microsoft's Brad Wilson, general manager of Dynamics CRM, said in an interview. "That's been core to our offerings for five years."[19]
"The end of software is here." Salesforce last year announced that it would integrate its Group Edition offering with Google AdWords.[39] It was more than a year and a half ago when I had a chance to listen to Marc Benioff talk about how his company's software would be integrating with Google to provide a mashup allowing companies to better track their Google ( News - Alert ) ads.[32] Previously, Benioff described Microsoft a dinosaur : I think Microsoft is still a dinosaur. More than ever, it tries to hold onto its monopolistic position around technology that they hold, whether it's SQL Server, whether it's NT, whether it's Windows, whether it's Office--these are their cash cows they don't want slaughtered. Benioff recognizes that to achieve success he must eventually replace, not just complement, the enterprise software giants. The alignment with Google is a direct shot at Microsoft, as well as Benioff opportunistically aligning his company with the current alpha company in Silicon Valley.[12]
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.[36] SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) — Google and Salesforce.com on Monday announced an expanded alliance to deliver online programs competing with packaged software at the heart of Microsoft's global empire.[42] "Last year the debate was 'if,' now the debate is 'when,'" Schmidt said of a shift to software in the cloud. "This is a 20, 30, 40-year vision." The alliance is proof that Google is concentrating on expanding its domain past online search and advertising while rival Microsoft focuses on an unwanted bid to take over Internet search veteran Yahoo.[42]
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. [52] The integration with Google Apps is something our clients have been asking for," Salesforce.com chief marketing officer George Hu said.[17] While the integration of Salesforce and Google Apps builds on work of its predecessors, it also represents a fundamental departure from most of those previous integration efforts.[19] Salesforce for Google Apps was made available for Salesforce users as a free option for now.[28] Salesforce for Google Apps also leverages the Force.com Platform and Googles open APIs, opening up even more development opportunities for developers and partners.[51] Last week's rumor has come true: Google and Salesforce.com are teaming to offer Google Apps as part of the Salesforce.com platform.[38]
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'''.[52] Analysts said that the move should help Google Apps gain some respect among skeptical IT managers unconvinced of the business suite's enterprise legitimacy.[37] 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.[4] Google Apps was suitable for enterprises and small to medium businesses, Mr Hu said.[17]
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.[18] 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. Much of this will happen under-the-radar.[4] 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.[27] 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.[47] Many of my colleagues see little alternative, despite what Phil Wainewright thinks about the pervasive nature of application adoption. During the live webcast, Dave Girouard, general manager of Google Enterprise acknowledged that getting Fortune 1000 companies to go Google's way follows a pattern with which those of us in enterprise land are very familiar: "They go slower." That won't preclude smaller companies from taking the Salesforce.com and Google bait but that brings them in direct competition with the Zoho's of this world.[45] You will be able to purchase Google Applications via SalesForce.com and there will be tighter integration between the two companies.[32] The Google Gears folks bent over backwards to make sure the playing field was level, and we got access to information and support to do the integration right. That is openness. It's not in Salesforce.com's DNA to partner unless there is zero competitive threat (which sounds horribly familiar) whereas Google has a much more open stance. Can two companies with such different approaches genuinely make it together? I'm not convinved.[45]
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.[3] 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.[16]
Google and Salesforce offer integrated app s for business users. [40] Two startups were showcased at the presentation Appirio, which offers four apps including a marketing campaign timeline for Google Calendar, and Astadia, whose app allows companies to quickly compile and collaborate on business quotes but there seems to be lots of opportunity to build much more.[10]
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.[18] Single-sign on won't even be available directly from Salesforce for Google Apps, but had to be outsourced to Sxip.[19]
The deal marks Salesforce's first departure from the desktop. Google's Web-based application package, which includes spreadsheet, text editor, calendar, instant messaging, e-mail and other tools, will become tightly integrated into Salesforce's service.[38] Google documents, spreadsheets, and presentation can be created from within Salesforce's CRM application.[18] Dave Girouard, who oversees Google's applications, also declined to comment about the company's interest in buying Salesforce.[3] A worker can access data stored by Salesforce through an application run by Google.[47] There are security concerns and reliability questions, but the move there seems all but inevitable. Google has been steadily rolling out updates to its cloud-based applications such as Google Docs to allow users to gain access to and edit their data even when they are not connected to the Internet ( our coverage ).[49] 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.[3]
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.[47] "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.[18]
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.[18] The clouds are beginning to merge," Schmidt said. Google has even changed its tag line to reflect its investment in applications, from search and ads to search, ads, and apps.[12] Martin described closer links between Google software and Salesforce.com applications.[1] 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."[4]
In June of that year, the two Microsoft rivals started integrating Google's AdWords advertising technology into Salesforce.com.[33] Internet search giant Google and software-as-a-service leader Salesforce.com are combining two products to take on Microsoft.[8] "85,000," Raikes repeated during the call in December. "That's about the same as Salesforce.com," Outside of Microsoft's SAAS, Raikes claimed 11,000 customers and 475,000 end users for Microsoft's on-premise Dynamics CRM product.[33] 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.[53]
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.[2]
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.[39] "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.[15]
It's hard to argue with these guys when you see the likes of Google, Zoho and Xythos selling SaaS solutions that in some cases rival Microsoft Office and in other case, simplify the offering to the most required elements.[41] We need products like MS Office to enable our offline work habits. The thing is: you now see products like those mentioned above offering offline access to enable the ever-connected to un-connect if only for a short time. The cost to use also makes these online services hard to ignore.[41] A recent Forrester report that surveyed 259 enterprises regarding the use of Microsoft Office 2007 shows that MS Office is not slowing down in terms of implementations. In his report: The State Of Microsoft Office 2007 Desktop Adoption, Forrester Analyst Kyle McNabb states that "Most enterprises have made the case for Office 2007 and plan to deploy or upgrade over the next 12 months if they haven't already" (roughly 72%). Those kinds of numbers are not indicative of a product on the down slide. 2011 is just not that far away.[41]
SAP and Microsoft's Duet, meanwhile, automatically synchronizes Outlook appointments with SAP's ERP system to record work and billable hours; allows employees to send and receive customized budget reports, manage sales contacts, access HR records, and schedule time off or travel from within Outlook; work on sales and demand forecasts in Excel; and edit purchase agreements from within Word. A new release of Duet due later this year is expected to be able to be tailored to specific vertical industry needs and integrate presence capability offered in Microsoft Office Communications Server with SAP systems.[19]
Last year, Google collected less than $200 million from software licensing while raking in $16.4 billion from advertising sales.[3] 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.[3]
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.[52] 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.[18]
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] Salesforce gets a tie-up with an Internet powerhouse and Google gains credibility in the business software sector, according to Enderle.[42] On the Appirio blog, Ryan Nichols has introduced the four applications being launched today by the Salesforce and Google integrator.[4] After watching so many tech companies align themselves in a partnership, before one ultimately buys the other, Id be more shocked if we didnt see Google acquire Salesforce, than vice versa.[51] The two companies refused to make a confirmation on the latest rumors according to which Google allegedly further intended to buy Salesforce.[2]
An add-in from Astadia allows Salesforce users to export reports to Google Spreadsheets.[19] 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.[18] Frankly, however, I love and use zoho.com, specifically creator.zoho.com and db.zoho.com and crm.zoho.com. zoho rocks over google apps exponentially.[11] I've been really impressed with the number and quality of apps Zoho has put together. I see them as perhaps the only real challenger to Google Apps.[27] Five people could work on building a presentation using Google Apps using the same version and it will stay on the internet.[16]
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.[1] Using the services together, companies would be able to utilize the customer relationship management (CRM) portion of the software to track where customers came from: which ad, which keyword, which landing page, etc.[32] Salesforce.com is the global leader in on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) and over 35,000 customers rely on it.[2]
Biz break: Salesforce.com teams with Google to woo customers from. Purdy: It's a big blow.[43] In a shot across Microsoft's bow, Google and Salesforce.com have integrated some of their hosted solutions.[30] 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.[18] 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.[11] 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.[11]
Last June, the companies released customer-management software that lets clients with five or fewer users purchase advertising links that appear next to Google's Internet search results. [43] For Google, every user it can steal away from Microsoft is worth the trouble. If Google wins over enough of them, Eric Schmidt can always tell his minions to add more features.[35] 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."[25] Salesforce.com is operating a push model where Google operates a (largely) pull model. This is a discussion the Irregulars have had over many months. While we generally applaud what Salesforce.com has achieved, their future strategy to make it into the large enterprises is dependent on an entrenchd and cost heavy model.[45] With Google teaming up with Salesforce.com, might Steve Ballmer be tempted to phone up Marc Benioff and strike a similar deal? The short answer is no.[35] 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.[24] AdventNet was supposed to participate in the Salesforce AppExchange program, but "we were about a week from launch when Marc Benioff decided to pull the plug," Vembu wrote. "He offered repeatedly to acquire Zoho outright, which we rejected. I told him there is absolutely no fit between our companies." Benioff "offered to let us integrate Zoho into AppExchange, provided we pull the plug on Zoho CRM. We told him that kind of pre-condition is totally unacceptable, and it also completely negates his claims of openness of their platform."[39]
You nailed one of the most important elements of this announcement-- the power of bringing together the platforms of Salesforce and Google for partners.[27]
"I can't see a lot of business customers switching from Outlook because of Salesforce' CRM integration with Gmail."[13] Users can run Dynamics CRM as an add-on client directly inside of Outlook, export CRM data into Word, and mail and take data from Excel and then re-import it back in. This integration is identical in Dynamics CRM Online as it is with the offline version of the product.[19] Microsoft's own CRM suite has long been integrated with Office in some of the same ways. That integration breaks with So's view that integration is expensive or requires upgrades because the free integration between Office and Dynamics CRM has been available since the first release of Dynamics CRM in 2003.[19] Jeff Raikes, who then headed Microsoft's Business Division, credited Microsoft's Dynamics CRM for pushing Microsoft's Business Solutions over the $1 billion mark in revenue for fiscal year 2007. This accomplishment was "fueled by greater than 50 percent growth with Dynamics CRM. In fact, we sold more than 85,000 seats of Dynamics CRM in the last quarter," according to Raikes, who in January announced his impending retirement from Microsoft.[33]
When first released, it required the then-most-recent versions of Microsoft and SAP's software, and still requires separate software downloads. It also offers a licensing model that potentially bests Microsoft Dynamics Client for Microsoft Office and SharePoint, which costs $395 per user.[19] 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.[18]
"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.[3]
Salesforce.com is currently trading at $59.08, down $2.01, and Google is trading at $452.60, down $4.85.[53] Shares of San Francisco-based Salesforce.com closed Friday at $61.09, while shares of Google closed at $457.36.[23]
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.[18] I'm not sure that Google would stomach the price. I'm also doubtful whether Google has yet accepted how much it needs to learn to sell effectively in the enterprise ''' it may even be arrogant enough to believe that it doesn't have to, because it's changing the rules of the game.[4] 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.[4] Go beyond Google and get vertical. These specialized search sites will help you find the business information you need -- fast.[19]
Schmidt emphasized a need to figure out a business model for cloud computing to make it work. At least one observer sees cloud computing -- and the Google-Salesforce.com announcement -- as being a disruptive technology factor for Microsoft.[30] "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," stated blogger Henry Blodget. Blodget is the one-time Wall Street analyst who gained infamy for his too favorable predictions about.com Internet companies in the 1990s.[30] Bigger picture, the partnership could be a big boost for cloud computing, which makes applications available to companies on-demand, without having to invest in the related hardware, software and staff training. For SMBs, cloud computing represents an opportunity to get their hands on tools that are too costly to buy and maintain themselves.[38] Industry politics are only part of the story. This new axis marks another signpost in the tech industry's slow march toward a future in which more--maybe one day, most--software applications eventually reside on the Internet. This hasn't escaped Microsoft's attention. Ray Ozzie recognizes that this is cloud computing's time.[35] The problem here is that an acquisition of Saleforce.com by any of the major players represents a huge threat to all of the other players. Squeezing could end up driving them and their assets into the hands of the enemy. As I've said before, the world and his dog may look at this announcement with starry eyes, foretell the death of Microsoft and others as they whiff what they think is blood on the enterprise floor. They're mistaken if they think it will be that easy, painless or happen any time soon. There are way too many ifs and buts to declare this game over, despite the obvious validation for cloud computing.[45]
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.[47]
"Customers are demanding a new generation of software, and the standard bearers of the previous generation have not stepped forward," Benioff said during the rollout event. "The power will be to run your applications in the cloud," he proclaimed.[12] Looks good from the customer end -- trusted vendors working together in the cloud, delivering something useful. a peek into the future of enterprise apps. They, like the open source movement, are leveraging partnerships to pry open the Enterprise door.[40] Google's suite of applications includes word processing, spreadsheets, calendaring and instant messaging, as well as e-mail.[3] To be more precise, it will include Google's e-mail service, Gmail, chat service, Google Talk and Calendar.[2] "The Google Gears folks bent over backwards to make sure the playing field was level, and we got access to information and support to do the integration right. That is openness," he wrote.[39] People tell me that in five years Google will own the enterprise.[52] 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.[4] Late last year Salesforce.com had about 1000 customers in Australia and New Zealand.[17] Swensrud expects that a "huge" percentage of Salesforce.com's customer base will be interested in the new feature.[29]
Salesforce.com has integration with Microsoft Office, but no equivalent to Gtalk. [12] A New York Times story today quoted Microsoft's CRM General Manager Brad Wilson, who indicated that the Google-Salesforce.com integration just "validates" Microsoft's approach.[30] If Office does go SaaS then are we going to need to buy new super-routers and our own personal satellites to provide the bandwidth to use it? If Office goes SaaS, I predict a boom time for NASA lol. The seriousness with which they push and invest in Silverlight in the short term may be a signal as to how worried/ serious they are about the browser-based cloud. Presumably they are worried/serious.[41] '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.[16] The expanded alliance allows third-party developers to customize applications and creates the world's largest cloud computing platform for building and running applications, according to the companies.[42]
Though, how many different Web platform companies can co-exist? A Google-Salesforce combo could sew up the Web platform for enterprise apps.[18]
Even Salesforce.com has some experience, previously releasing a client app for Outlook and enabling some interoperability with other Office apps.[19] 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.[16] 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.[47] 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.[25]
Charles Cooper has covered technology and business for over 25 years. A graduate of Queens College and Columbia University, Cooper began his career in journalism at the Associated Press before moving to technology coverage. Over the years, he has worked at Computer & Software News, Computer Shopper, PC Week, ZDNet News and now, CNET News.com. He received the Excellence in Journalism award from the Northern California branch of the Society for Professional Journalists for column writing.[35] The term "disruptive technology" is attributed to Clayton Christensen in the book, "The Innovator's Dilemma," and refers to technology that destroys the business models of entrenched industries. Kurt Mackie is online news editor, Enterprise Group, at 1105 Media Inc.[30]
Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff tells the Business Technology Blog that the agreement changes the balance of power in the business-computing world.[47] In my opinion, there are many companies that would love to not worry about idle employees if a broadband provider or router fails. I have to say that I really appreciate Marc Benioff as a spokesperson for SalesForce.com because he calls things as he sees them.[32]
All of which leads me to conclude that today's announcement is largely a market building exercise based upon the noise the two companies can generate with plenty of speculation left to argue whether Salesforce.com survives as an independent operation.[45]
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.[47] '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.[16]
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.[47] 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.[18]
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.[18] More than 500,000 businesses and millions of people use the programs, according to Google.[3] "The Google-Salesforce pairing is potentially powerful, and could eventually become a formidable competitor to CRM Live," said Weinstock. Mike Ritsema, president of i3 Business Solutions LLC, a Grand Rapids, Mich. -based solution provider, says that while the 'Googleization' of various business applications is a logical step, it's not likely to catch on with businesses that require advanced functionality.[9] The prevalence of Outlook and the overall difficulty of CRM implementations give Microsoft a solid position in the CRM space, but solution providers would be wise not to underestimate the Google-Salesforce collboration, says Jerry Weinstock, President and CEO at Internet Business Initiatives, Lenexa, Kans.[9]
One feature automatically logs e-mail sent to a customer in the CRM software. Another overlays marketing events on an individual's calendar. [8] 10 Salesforce.com customers have tested the integration in a beta test mode, said Swensrud.[29] 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.[52]
IBM and Microsoft are moving into on-line collaboration. These are not necessarily folks you want coming after you. It looks like a sea change is coming and Salesforce.com is sitting smack in the middle of it.[45] Microsoft Dynamics NAV staff have admitted in recent blog entries to user complaints about changes made in the 5.0 edition Dynamics NAV accounting software, promising to provide software fixes and better documentation in the future.[33] Raikes remained rather mute, though, about Microsoft's ERP offerings, except to say that, "We're bringing updated versions of our ERP products, Dynamics AX and NAV, to market."[33] I'm surprised we haven't heard of appliance computing more from MS. Installing blade servers with a pre configured exchange / sharepoint / multi license office suites. Take their integration with the corporate work flow a level deeper and start licensing servers that could deploy it in either a thin client / server setting or / and an online offering.[41] You know, it totally cracks me up when not a week goes by without news of some catastrophic data compromise that's screwed up the lives of millions of consumers yet there are still people out there pushing the whole, "Leave all your sensitive information ON OUR SERVERS." Interestingly, not one of the entities marketing this sort of thing is even offering what's become standard requirement for remote access in the corporate environment: two-factor, token-based, single use passwords (such as the RSA token). Until somebody gets serious about security, this entire concept is just marketing hype.[49]
'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.[16]
Of course, you know, another key element is networking services where to efficiently serve up apps and content to Internet users worldwide in a very low-latency and efficient manner. [35] We'll continue to accept that Office is not perfect and run our service packs as necessary to fight the evil bugs Microsoft misses or ignores.[41]
Visit the IDG Building the Adaptive Network site, sponsored by ProCurve Networking by HP. Having migrated to IP, companies must now bring out the value of their IT assets through application integration. [37]
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53. RTTNews - Breaking News, financial breaking News, Positive EPS Surprises, Stock research .
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