Salesforce and Google partnership focuses on G Suite and Google Cloud
Salesforce and Google announced Monday they are bolstering their partnership to enable a more collaborate experience for its customers across Google Cloud and Analytics. The announcement confirmed speculations from earlier this year that the companies were planning to expand their partnership.
Marketers attempting to build customers using Salesforce data with Google Analytics have faced technical problems in the past. As part of the partnership, the companies will work together to bring G Suite, Google’s package of workplace software, to Salesforce’s customer relationship management (CRM), which enables businesses to gain insight into their customers from data acquired by company gmail sheets, calendar, drive, docs and hangouts.
“We hope this partnership enables more companies to take advantage of the cloud and that the combined solutions will provide an unmatched experience for customers,” wrote Nan Boden, head of global technology partners at Google Cloud, in a company blog post. “In fact, our team at Google Cloud uses Salesforce as our preferred CRM provider to engage with our customers in meaningful ways.”
In addition, Google’s Analytics 360 service, an enterprise marketing analytics solution, will be combined with Salesforce’s products, providing clients with a new way to keep tabs on sales and advertising data. Moreover, Google is making its cloud service available for free for one year for Salesforce clients who do not have the service already.
“Our partnership with Google represents the best of both worlds for our customers,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce. “There has never been an easier way for companies to run their entire business in the cloud—from productivity apps, email and analytics, to sales, service and marketing apps, this partnership will help make our customers smarter and more productive.”
Speculation had been circulating among analysts and investors earlier this year about the possibility of Salesforce being absorbed by a bigger tech company like Google. In February, for example, research firm Arete Research Services LLP purported in a report that Google ought to buy Salesforce for about $73 billion.
The partnership doesn’t impact Salesforce’s existing relationship with Amazon Web Services (AWS), which the company selected as its public cloud infrastructure provider last year in a $400 million deal. Major cloud vendors like AWS, Microsoft’s Azure and Google cloud are benefiting from companies choosing multiple cloud vendors to help them build applications.
Salesforce integrations are anticipated to be made generally available in 2018. However, some integrations, like Lightening for Gmail, which keep contacts and calendar events in sync with Salesforce, are currently available.
