Google and Salesforce.com on Monday announced an expanded alliance to deliver online programs competing with packaged software at the heart of Microsoft’s global empire.
Google “Apps” including email, calendar, and document writing will be included in software services offered by Salesforce, which essentially serves as a for-hire technology department businesses via the Internet.
“Salesforce.com and Google have changed the game again,” said Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone. “This is revolutionizing the way people work.”
Salesforce is a leader in “software as a service” (SaaS), which is referred to as “cloud computing” because programs are hosted online instead of installed and maintained on users’ machines.
Selling packaged software has been the mainstay of US software giant Microsoft’s profitability for decades.
“Google and Salesforce.com have always had similar models and philosophies about delivering innovations made possible by the Internet,” said Google chief executive Eric Schmidt.
“Together, we are making more applications and services available online so customers can focus on building their core business rather than the applications that support it.”
Google and Salesforce made their first SaaS alliance last year, triggering speculation the Internet search king might buy the fast-growing firm founded by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff in 1999.
“The combination of our leading CRM applications and Google’s business productivity applications pushes forward the transformation of the industry to cloud computing,” Benioff said.
The expanded alliance announced Monday allows third-party developers to customize applications and creates the world’s largest cloud computing platform for building and running applications, according to the companies.