Google and Salesforce.com teaming up?

Posted by Mike Snyder on May 23, 2007 |

Monday's Wall Street Journal reported:

"Internet giant Google Inc. and Salesforce.com Inc., are discussing an alliance that could help them compete more effectively with Microsoft Corp., according to people familiar with the matter. The companies are still hashing out details of a potential partnership, expected to be announced in the next few weeks. But one outcome, these people said, could be a Web-based offering that integrates some of Google's online services such as email and instant-messaging with those of Salesforce.com, whose "customer-relationship management" tools help salespeople track their accounts."

My initial reaction when I read this was "WOW! This is big news". Everyone knows that Google and Microsoft hate each other with a burning passion, and I think it is also pretty much common knowlege that Salesforce.com is the #1 competitor for the Microsoft CRM product. Therefore, those two companies teaming up will definitely get Microsoft's attention.

After thinking about it a little more, I am not sure exactly what this "alliance" would mean for end users of Salesforce.com. The WSJ mentioned integrating Google's email and instant-messaging with Salesforce.com, but this seems like a really trivial integration point. Over the past 5+ years I've spoken with hundreds of customers and prospects and not ONE of them ever asked for something like this. So unless they have something else up their sleeve, this doesn't seem like a big issue for a company like ours that sells Microsoft CRM. I can't ever imagine losing a deal because Salesforce.com integrates with Gmail!

On the plus side, I am almost glad Google and Salesforce.com are teaming because it will put them squarely in the Microsoft cross-hairs! Whenever Microsoft sets their sight on a target, they almost always win.

Comments

I've used Salesforce extensively! I was actually oversaw the purchase, creation, integration of our system first hand (Since I Programmed it). While programming, I found myself going back and fourth between Google and the Salesforce System. I would research our client’s financial data, earnings report even there customers using Google. So if you think about it, it would be a clear bridge to the information about you clients, their clients and there competitors, all tied into a CRM System, which will definitely allow you to serve your customers better.

If you tied Google news, to each of your clients, and they landed in some legal trouble or financial trouble. The system could red-flag that client based upon the information and tell you "May need to request those back invoices now". (Theoretically)

I hate to take sides, but I interviewed Siebel’s, Goldmine and all the other CRM's including Microsoft, and none compared. They offered tons of more tools and customization, but because we were a relatively small company, they didn't fit our needs.

The fact that a single person can program and implement a corporate wide CRM System (With a Moderate Programming Background) spoke volumes to me during their very first presentation. Guess I should have grabbed some stock when it was $22? Being partners with Google (The Keeper of the Worlds Information), can only mean bigger and better things!

Posted by: Jonas Miller | May 24, 2007 3:27:46 PM
I see this as the owner of Salesforce cashing out while he still can. All functionality aside, Microsoft will eventually win. 15 years ago we all worked happily away on our wordperfect documents, our lotus 123 spreadsheets and saved them to our Novell file servers. Word, Excel and Windows NT were there, cute but not ready for prime time. Smart move to get money out Salesforce while it is still "hot" in the market.

Posted by: Nick Doelman | Jun 8, 2007 1:03:49 PM
Actually, this Google - Salesforce.com partnership turned out to be a bunch of smoke but no fire. See this writeup for more: http://weblog.infoworld.com/realitycheck/archives/web_20/index.html. My favorite quote? "Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."

Posted by: Mike Snyder | Jun 9, 2007 9:40:05 PM
Being a MSCRM 3.0 and Salesforce user over the years - I think MS has a ton of potential moving forward with CRM. The Outlook integration alone is worth the price of admission. Workflow is better, environment is richer, etc...

But, Salesforce is rolling out some pretty good stuff as well. SF is much, much easier to customize - it is faster (MSCRM is slow...let's face it)...most users can manage a great deal of it's extensibility on their own. A big selling point...

SF's strategy of marketing as a "Platform" is ingenious...it can do model pretty much any Line of Business application fairly well.

My company is on the verge of evaluating a CRM/SFA solution - SF is a leading candidate...I look forward to seeing CRM 4.x...a hosted version would be desirable.

Does anyone know the release date for 4.x? Any info or demo available?

Posted by: Jason Mutchler | Jun 19, 2007 9:51:57 AM

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