Intelligent Enterprise

"Pinch me, I'm dreaming!" This is the line Salesforce.com is using to promote today's announcement of "Salesforce for Google Apps," a pairing of the software-as-a-service-based sales force automation offering with Google Apps. The New York Times had a scoop on the story this morning, and they pegged it with this quote from Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com's CEO: "The enemy of my enemy is my friend, so that makes Google my best friend."

The enemy in question is Microsoft, of course, and Salesforce for Google Apps will be going up against Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. The twist here is that Salesforce and Google say they'll be able to mash up their SaaS-based apps so you can, for example, keep track of e-mails sent (through Gmail) to a particular customer right on that customer's sales record...

"In the history of hosted software to date, applications could be like islands," Google's Dave Girouard told The Times. "They don't really work together seamlessly. This is a first of its kind."

Microsoft's response was that it has been all over the combination of CRM and collaboration apps for years, but then, Google and others have effectively forced Microsoft into the services-based productivity apps market.

The one thing that strikes me as odd about the Salesforce/Google Apps combo is the packaging as "Salesforce for Google Apps," as if enterprises would choose Google Apps first and then add Salesforce, not the other way around. And if we're talking about paring CRM with productivity apps, it would seem to me that it's essential to have your Google Gears story (on supporting offline use of formerly online-only apps) completed and bullet proof before suggesting that mobile professionals can be productive with a SaaS-delivered desktop.

Here's the link to today's announcement as well as to related documentation.