As expected, Salesforce and Google have officially announced that they have linked to deliver an integrated solution for their Salesforce customers who are also users of Google apps. Starting today, Salesforce customers who are using its Customer Relation Management (CRM) applications will now be able to use various Google applications, Gmail, Calendedar and GTalk.
News.com reported that the move was brought about by the clamor of Salesforce’s customers through its online forum called Idea Exchange, to integrate Google Apps with Saleforce’s CRM. Salesforce has previous tie ups with Microsoft Office and Outlook desktop applications but this is the first time that the company is embarking on a wider Web-based applications such as Google Apps.
When Salesforce asked is planning to enter into a similar deal with Microsoft Office Live Kraig Swensrud, vice-president of Applications at Salesforce said:
“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.”
For its part Google is also looking into 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.
The integration of Google apps into Salesforce own application is free of charge to its customers since Google apps, as we all know is accessible online for free as well. But, as News.com noted, there could be a profit motive behind this deal. Salesforce will later on be offering a service called Google Apps Supported which will charge users $10 fee monthly for telephone support, billing and provisioning services to be given out to Salesforce users.
But what’s in it for Google?
