Date: 04-15-2008
Salesforce.com has started integrating Google Inc.’s products with its customer relationship management (CRM) applications. Versions of Gmail, Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Apps will be linked directly to Salesforce.com. “What made this possible is that Salesforce and Google...both deliver native Web applications,” said Kraig Swensrud, vice-president of Applications at Salesforce.com. Salesforce will be selling Google’s programs to its 41,000 business customers and will not charge any fee for any of the Google office applications. This online approach, which is better known as “cloud computing,” is set to threaten big software makers like Microsoft and Oracle who make money by levying licensing and maintenance fees. “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,” said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. Benioff has also been a prime supporter for “cloud computing” since having left Oracle nine years ago.
