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

from the smell-the-fear? dept

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.