Perspectives on Salesforce.com

Steve posted yesterday about a possible gMail integration that’s coming to Salesforce. This was based upon a button option in the Activity History related list on Page Layouts.

Well, I think I found another one. I was uploading a new package today and I saw this…

Is an integration with Google Docs coming?

According to ZDNet, Salesforce.com will be holding a press conference on June 5 with a “leading Internet company based in the Bay Area”. Makes sense that this would be Google.

Lots of theories exist on what the partnership/acquisition will be about. My guess is that it’s a partnership (not an acquisition) and it’ll be a deep integration of Google Enterprise apps with Salesforce.com. I think this could include:

• Google Apps gMail: Similar to the Outlook Edition, you’ll be able to add emails to Salesforce from Google Apps gMail. Hopefully, email to case is all integrated into this too.
• Calendar sync: I think this is the least likely of all features.
• Docs & Spreadsheet: Create Google Docs & Spreadsheets from within Salesforce so they are auto associated with your records. Also would include the ability to upload a document and have it uploaded to Google Docs & Spreadsheet rather than just being a file in the Documents tab. When turned on, this functionality will be native in the Documents section of Salesforce.com rather than an AppExchange application that uses all new functionality
• Data indexing: Have Google index your Salesforce.com data in a secure environment and replace the Salesforce search with Google Search
• Google for Adwords tied in with Google Analytics & Salesforce.com Campaigns
• All of this will cost extra $$$

If it’s something like the above, I think the announcement will be a bit anti-climatic what with all the speculation about an acquisition. However, it would still be pretty cool.

My idea is all pure speculation, but its fun to think about. Applying Google technology to the Salesforce.com platform could make for some very exciting capabilities.

Gareth Davies has posted his 2007 predictions. Most of them are Salesforce.com related.

An article today in Business Week Online talks about an upcoming announcement from Salesforce called “AppExchange”.

According to the article, AppExchange is a marketplace for On-Demand applications that will be managed by Salesforce.com. It sounds like these are all apps that would be hosted by Salesforce.com (not 100% sure about my interpretation there) and could be trialed and purchased through AppExchange. I presume that these will all integrate with Salesforce.com, but the article indicates that they will also host apps that have no interaction with Salesforce; stand-alone On Demand apps. Salesforce will be seeding AppExchange with some apps they built when it goes live.

Sounds like an interesting idea that will open up the door for a lot of innovation in and around the product.