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Would A Google-Salesforce.com Partnership Really Be Such A Threat?

from the smell-the-fear? dept

Tue, May 22nd 2007 12:45pm — Joseph Weisenthal

Speaking at the Salesforce.com developer conference, Marc Benioff acknowledged, but didn't comment on, yesterday's rumors involving his company and Google. Seeing as he didn't deny them, though, people are assuming that something is definitely going on. While a tie up between the two companies would be viewed as an aggressive competitor to Microsoft (and others), it's still not clear what a partnership would actually accomplish. The best theory at the moment is that the deal would mainly benefit Google. While Salesforce.com might generate some nice press and attention from it while adding some functionality to its offering, it's Google that's had a really hard time cracking the enterprise. The company's enterprise search offering isn't considered a category leader, while its recently announced paid apps service is still a decidedly small, niche service. However, by tying its software to Salesforce.com, the company may stand to break into Salesforce.com's fairly impressive customer base. That being said, if the primary thrust of the deal is to boost Google's simple office apps, then it seems a bit premature to start talking about a serious alternative to Microsoft.

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Instructor, 22 May 2007 @ 2:00pm

simple office apps
"Google's simple office apps" are quite sufficient for most of what I need an office suite for, and by constrast, Microsoft Office is double giant overkill, not to mention ridiculously expensive. There might be a much larger market than you think for simpler, more lightweight office apps.
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Harry, 22 May 2007 @ 5:37pm

App integration
It would offer more flexibility in what applications you can use the mail, spreadsheet and mail merge integration with for salesforce.

The other interesting thing is if this will strain the salesforce/Microsoft relationship considering Microsoft has their own OnDemand CRM system. Granted it doesn't have the market share Salesforce does, but it is a competitor.
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