Google, Salesforce.com to partner on Web site
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Blog: Site aims to allow the online customer relationship management software maker to act as a reseller for Google's AdWords.
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(InfoWorld) - In a deal that makes both companies look good, Salesforce.com announced that Omniture, one of the leaders in online Web marketing analytics, will be the newest service to join AppExchange. AppExchange is theSalesforce.com platform that allows third-party ISVs to integrate their applications with Salesforce CRM.Â  For its part, Salesforce gets Omniture Closed Loop Marketing for Salesforce, a service that will bring to its site marketing executives, a group that up until now had no compelling reason to use Salesforce. "Salesforce is typically a tool used by sales executives," said John Lovett, senior analyst, Web Site Technologies & Operations at Jupiter Research. From an Omniture point of view, the company will now be able to expose its capabilities to a far larger audience, which will put the company in a good position to sell even more marketing analytic services than what will be currently offered on the AppExchange site. For example, neither Genesis, a service that allows companies to integrate their online marketing applications, nor SiteCatalyst, which focuses on visitor site behavior, will be offered on AppExchange. Omniture's appeal comes from its ability to allow marketers to track different aspects of multiple marketing campaigns and to attribute credit to numerous campaigns leading up to a sale or a conversion, says Lovett. "Previously, one campaign would get the credit for a sale even when it may have been the combined result of two or three campaigns," said Lovett. The pain point Omniture solves, according to both Gail Ennis, senior vice president of worldwide marketing at Omniture and Ariel Kelman, senior director of platform product marketing at Salesforce, is in tearing down the wall that exists between sales and marketing. "It has been hard for these two organizations to come together to deliver effective marketing campaigns," said Kelman. Reporting capabilities will be available through both Salesforce or Omniture dashboards or through mashups between the services. Omniture Closed Loop Marketing for Salesforce is available now. Pricing starts at $2,500 per month for unlimited users.
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Search giant Google and US Space agency Nasa sign an agreement to make space data available on the web
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InfoWorld - Hosted CRM service provider Salesforce.com took another step forward last week in its strategy to build an online ecosystem of vendors that offer software as a service.
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Etelos Systems Inc. has brought a beta version of a tool that can link its hoste CRM software and the Web-based suite of applications from Google Inc.
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(InfoWorld) - The North American sales arm of Singapore Airlines Ltd. is halfway through a project to use on-demand software from Salesforce.com Inc. to improve collaboration between its home-based corporate travel staff. Following the lead of some of its peers in the industry, Singapore Airlines is requiring corporate business travel sales staff to work out of their homes to pare down infrastructure costs. The sales staff is spread out in cities including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Philadelphia and San Diego. The issue the airline and other companies are grappling with is how best to foster collaboration between such geographically scattered staff while also increasing efficiency and driving more sales. Prior to initial deployment of Salesforce.com's hosted sales automation and marketing software in April, the sales staff relied on e-mail and offline meetings as its main method for communication and collaboration, according to Michael Stellwag, manager of direct sales and marketing for the Americas at Singapore Airlines. About 18 months ago, the airline decided a sales force automation tool could help bring its home-based sales staff into closer collaboration with each other. Singapore Airlines took an in-depth look at products from three vendors over the course of six months -- Sage Software Inc.'s Act contact management software, enterprise applications vendor Saratoga Systems' CRM (customer relationship management) product, and Salesforce.com's hosted sales force automation and marketing offerings. The airline particularly liked Salesforce.com's on-demand approach since the application could run without support from Singapore Airlines' IT staff. The airline closed a deal to use Salesforce software as the software vendor's fiscal year ended on Jan. 31, 2006. From late 2005 through early 2006, Salesforce.com experienced a series of much publicized service outages. "We didn't place too much emphasis [on the failures]," Stellwag said. "Companies like Salesforce.com live and die by availability and we were confident the problem would be fixed. It didn't seem like anything more than a blip on the radar screen." Once the application was up and running, Stellwag began to check out Salesforce.com's AppExchange Web site where the vendor showcases both its own on-demand add-ons and applications developed by third parties to be used with the Salesforce software. "I looked at the broad array of applications and got hooked," he said. Of particular interest have been applications that address the specific needs of the airline industry, according to Stellwag. So far, Singapore Airlines is using 14 AppExchange applications including user adoption dashboards that measure how frequently the sales staff use the software. He also highlighted an application that integrates the Hoover's company database, an important source of sales leads for the airline's staff, with the Salesforce software. Looking ahead, Singapore Airlines wants to find ways to help sales team members be more efficient in how they set up trips to meet customers by doing mash-ups between Salesforce and mapping software from Mapquest Inc. and Google Inc. So far, about a dozen home-based salespeople are using the Salesforce software, with several more individuals to go live shortly. "Longer term, the number of home-based sales team members could jump considerably," Stellwag said. The sales staff particularly like the hosted software's offline module which enables them to access the basic functionality of Salesforce without needing an Internet connection. "People are communicating more than ever before," Stellwag said. "Everyone can see everyone else's details to facilitate greater cooperation and communication and for everyone to see how everyone else is doing." That ability to view colleague's sales progress acts as a self motivator for staff to ensure their efforts are at the level they should be, he added. Sharing calendars and task lists is proving extremely helpful in enabling the airline to put together an account team focused on a particular company, despite the sales team being based in different locations. Soon, the airline will roll out IBM Corp.'s Lotus Notes groupware to its sales operation in the U.S. and Canada, which had previously been using Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook Express. Stellwag is looking forward to the integration of Notes with Salesforce to enable further collaboration. "Salesforce has been successful at increasing productivity and has had a significant impact on our sales success," Stellwag said. "This is an experiment being watched very closely by executives in our worldwide headquarters in Singapore." When the project ends in about a year's time, if it has continued to meet a number of preset key performance indicators, the door could be open for a wider deployment of the hosted software. Â
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Google Inc. on Friday will join the crowded field of services registering Web site addresses in a move aimed at encouraging more usage of the online search leader's free software products.
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(InfoWorld) - You know the argument: SaaS applications are great for green field deployments, but difficult or risky to integrate with those legacy applications where all the really important data lives. With its announcement this week of ApexConnect, an integration tool to connect on-demand applications to back-end systems, analysts say Salesforce.com has moved to stuff that bogeyman back in the closet and has given SaaS enterprise-level capabilities. The company said Monday that ApexConnect integration services will be built on Salesforceâs Apex programming language for multitenant applications announced last month. The new tool will allow the approximately 400 third-party applications on the companyâs AppExchange platform to work with legacy applications, Web services, and other on-demand applications. Apex uses a syntax that most Java programmers will find familiar and allows any component or application created in it to be shared with any other application on the AppExchange. The new tools include ConnectOut, an outbound messaging API that can orchestrate an event in an external system, such as SAP, based on a trigger event in Saleforce.com, said Kendall Collins, senior vice president of marketing at Salesforce. âIt has the ability to kick off a process with an SAP or Oracle system,â Collins said. Another ApexConnect tool, ConnectOracle, will give IT the capability to connect to any Oracle back office system to synchronize data between Salesforceâs CRM application and Oracleâs ERP systems, Collins said. For example, a new account in Salesforce could be automatically added to Oracleâs billing system or enable a business process such as sending out invoices or delivery notices or matching a new order against a previous discount schedule stored in a contract management system. The Apex API will also allow middleware partners including Tibco, Informatica, Web Methods, IBM and Oracle, to connect to any part of Salesforceâs on- demand system. Taken together, Salesforceâs SaaS platform, AppExchange partners, and ApexConnect show SaaS encroaching on enterprise capabilities and reaching a critical mass that will allow IT to build end-to-end system processes, said Denis Pombriant, principal at Beagle Research. âOne of the main themes that runs through the history of IT is vendors and companies trying to figure out how to support business processes the way they want to run them from the very beginning to the very end,â Pombriant said. âThis is the end game.â The Apex programming language will be available in the first half of 2007 according to Salesforce officials. â[Systems integrators] have been holding back, [on SaaS] waiting to see what the next big technology shift is going to be. Announcements like this that will help them decide,â Pombriant said.ADVERTISEMENTNEW IT SERVICES FROM IBM: EASIER TO BUY AND IMPLEMENTDiscover a simpler, more cost-effective way to get the solutions your company needs to grow more flexible and efficient.
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The online software pioneer Salesforce.com will help the Internet search leader Google sell ads as part of a partnership.
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(InfoWorld) - Google announced on Thursday evening that a domain name search and registration service will be added to its Google Apps for Your Domain offering. Google will partner with GoDaddy and eNom, two domain registration companies to offer the service. Registration fees are a nominal $10 per year, which will include private registration to protect personal information and will support .com, .org, .net, .biz, and .info domains. Besides search and registration, the service also includes the creation of an administrative account for managing the site and a configurator to ensure the Google Apps are immediately available on the new site. Google Apps for Your Domain includes Gmail, calendar, shared calendaring, Google Talk instant messaging, Google Page Creator, and the Start Page for creating a home page. The domain name service is available now.
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InfoWorld - Next Monday, Salesforce.com will, in the words of one industry analyst, &quot;extend the value proposition of software as a service&quot; when it introduces Visualforce at its Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco.
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(InfoWorld) - Intuit Inc. will integrate into QuickBooks 2007 various search and marketing services from Google Inc., a move intended to help small business users of the Intuit accounting software promote themselves online. QuickBooks 2007, due in the fourth quarter, will contain shortcuts and links to Google's AdWords advertising program, Maps Web site and Base product listing service, the companies announced Wednesday. QuickBooks 2007 customers will get US$50 in credits for AdWords, Google's massive search-based, pay-per-click advertising program, the driver of most of Google's revenue. Meanwhile, QuickBooks 2007 will link to Google Maps, where users can create a business listing that will be mapped on the Web site. With technology from StepUp Commerce Inc., which Intuit acquired, QuickBooks 2007 will automate the process of feeding product-listing information to Google Base. QuickBooks 2007 will also come with the Google Desktop application for indexing and searching PC hard drives.The Google products and services will be featured in a variety of QuickBooks 2007 versions. The chief executive officers of the companies will hold a conference call Wednesday afternoon local time to discuss the partnership's details. The move is Google's latest to bundle and integrate its products and services into third-party applications and hardware devices. This partnership with Intuit also opens up another front in the wide-ranging and rabid battle between Google and Microsoft Corp., as each vendor moves aggressively into the other's core markets. Google, a leader in Web search, has been moving into office productivity software and Web portal services, Microsoft's core markets. Meanwhile, Microsoft is trying to encroach on Google's Web search turf. Microsoft is also an Intuit enemy in the market for small business accounting software.ADVERTISEMENTMAKE SOA REAL WITH IBM WEBSPHERE PODCASTStreamline processes and maximize efficiency within a proven service oriented architecture. Take back control of your business processes with IBM WebSphere.
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Google is forming partnerships with hundreds of smaller media companies that see value in contributing to the site.
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(InfoWorld) - CapgeminiÂ , a major global services provider, has just partnered with Google to enable large-scale adoption of the enterprise version of Google Apps. Capgemini will provide training, support, integration, and other services to large organizations that implement Google Apps Premier. Itâs a small but momentous event, signaling increasing enterprise interest in free Web-based apps that look and feel like Word, Excel, and other Microsoft Office software. Google Apps was added to the portfolio of products Capgemini supports because the company believes demand for SaaS (software-a-service) productivity suites will grow strongly in coming years. Steve JonesÂ , a CTO at Capgemini, is quick to note that Google Apps will not displace Office, but will fill two niches: enhancing the ability of knowledge workers to create documents collaboratively and bringing Office-like capabilities to workers who would not otherwise have them. Nonetheless, adoption is bound to increase. "I'd expect more and more IT services companies will offer that kind of help desk and support around the Google Apps Premier environment," says Rebecca WettemannÂ , an analyst with Nucleus ResearchÂ . "Now is the time to definitely have advanced technology folks and strategy people, the ones who look a year or two ahead, to look at this stuff and stay abreast of it, even if the time isn't yet right to purchase," says Burton Group analyst Guy CreeseÂ . "A huge mistake would be to look at the offerings today, say they're immature, and then not pay any attention." At this point, with viral adoption of Google Apps happening under ITâs radar, attention is already being paid by rank in file employees. And Google is far from the only provider. Several smaller vendors with strong offerings, including ZohoÂ  and ZimbraÂ , compete directly with Google Apps. Cisco Systems now offers its WebEx WebOffice Â platform for collaboration, while a number of applications in Salesforce.comâs AppExchange venture into desktop productivity territory Waiting for Redmondâs shoe to drop Conspicuous by its absence is Microsoft, which has been unable or unwilling to come out with a hosted suite comparable to Google Apps. Many wonder if Microsoft is having a hard time figuring out how to develop a hosted version of Office without cannibalizing its offline business. "A challenge for Microsoft is to figure out how to get people to buy the next version of Office if there is also an on-demand version," says Wettemann. Yet few doubt that Microsoft will eventually respond with a direct competitor to Google Apps and other similar suites. When it does, the effect on the market will likely be significant. "I think Microsoft needs to worry about it now because it takes a while to get right," Creese says. "In hosted office suites, it's going to take a while for companies to figure out how they want the thing to work." In defense of the current strategy, Microsoft officials have said that Office has steadily gained hosted service components for years, and that combining local PC software with services in the cloud is the right approach. Steve Ballmer elaborated on this point last May at the Software 2007 conference. Last week, Microsoft released a unified installer to help users download updates for its family of Windows Live hosted services. Yet those who have been waiting for Microsoft to make a power move found the announcement underwhelming and dismissed it as cosmetic. Not a desktop substitute While many organizations ponder SaaS productivity suites, thousands of others have already implemented them. Web-based suites save on hardware and on time and effort for software installation and maintenance. They also make it easy for employees to share and collaborate on documents for a fraction of the cost it would take to implement an in-house messaging and collaboration system such as Microsoft SharePoint or IBM's Lotus Domino/Notes. Disadvantages include security concerns over hosting sensitive data with a third-party outside the corporate firewall, as well as downtime incidents that leave the organization without access. Upon close inspection, exiting SaaS suites reveal themselves as strong in certain areas and weak in others. In a recently published and widely discussed 55-page report, Creese took a microscope to Google Apps Premier, dissecting its pros and cons in detail. For example, Creese found the suite lacking in archiving features, such as records management and electronic discovery, as well as in analytics capabilities, such as analysis of content creation patterns. Google responded with a statement saying that the suite gives organizations "a new set of choices, many of which will complement and extend the power of the desktop, enhance group productivity and improve collaboration." Indeed, after weighing the pros and cons of SaaS suites, most analysts, users and vendors generally agree that these will not eliminate the need for packaged software suites. Because each model has its advantages, they work best in tandem, complementing each other. "We'll see more and more organizations that look to a tiered strategy for the way they deliver desktop applications. So rather than have a standard desktop, I may give Office to the folks in finance who really need Excel, while the folks in marketing may be fine within the Google environment," Wettemann says. The network effect At Adison & PartnersÂ , an executive recruitment consultancy, adopting Cisco's WebOffice has had a major positive effect, says Managing Partner Jim DiPietropoloÂ . The 8-person company has been office-less for the past several months, awaiting the completion of its new digs, which got delayed. With people working from home, having documents and calendars stored centrally in WebOffice servers has prevented the workflow from getting disjointed. "It ties everyone together," he says. Beyond helping with this temporary issue, WebOffice lets DiPietropolo and his employees be nimble in responding to client queries and requests while out of the office, by tapping remotely into databases and getting information on the fly. "From a business development standpoint, this has been a differentiator for us," he says. "This ability to instantaneously respond [to queries] really impresses clients." The significance of the Capgemini announcement, however, is that desktop SaaS solutions are moving upscale, from small businesses like Adison & Partners to global corporations â where dispersed knowledge workers are warming to the idea of collaborating on the same document in real time. âHaving a single version of the truth changes the business process,â says Capgeminiâs Jones, who notes that the e-mail round-robin that occurs in conventional document collaborations is eliminated. âReally, what weâre talking about is bringing software-as-a-service innovation to the desktop,â says Jones. âThe main way that people interact with a corporation is through the desktop. We are delivering software-as-a-service solutions into that market.â
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(InfoWorld) - Next Monday, Salesforce.com will, in the words of one industry analyst, "extend the value proposition of software as a service" when it introduces Visualforce at its Dreamforce Conference in San Francisco. The Visualforce layer introduces the user interface as a service. Visualforce is the latest component of Salesforce.com's Platform-as-a-Service, which the company announced earlier this summer as Force.com. Other components include the database and logic portions. Visualforce will allow Salesforce.com customers to design custom application interfaces while incorporating other technologies such as HTML, AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript and XML), and Adobe Flex. The company made the move following requests from customers who wanted to present a more diverse UI, rather than creating applications that had a similar look and feel to the Salesforce.com CRM, according to Ariel Kelman, senior director of platform product marketing at Salesforce.com. Doug Menefee, CIO at The Schumacher Group, sounded quite enthusiastic about what he could do with Visualforce, although he hadn't used it yet. "By being able to build applications utilizing Visualforce, we will be able to build custom interfaces that improve workflow and productivity for data-entry-intensive job functions," said Menefee. Menefee was also pleased about the opportunity to build wizards in Visualforce. According to Jeff Kaplan, managing director of THINKstrategies, with each user conference, Salesforce adds another layer of value to SaaS (software as a service). Up until now, customization has been a thorn in the side of SaaS. It has been a topic of concern and criticism by SaaS skeptics, said Kaplan. "This new feature and capability is a clear indication of how quickly the SaaS industry is evolving to permit customization. And it is another example [of] how those misconceptions of the past are continually being eroded by these developments," Kaplan said. Menefee said that Visualforce will allow his organization to apply best practices to user interface design in various applications. This, in turn, will let them customize the employee experience based on their needs for data entry or viewing. Visualforce uses a "page-based model" built on current Web presentation technology and adds a component library for incorporating common interface elements. The UI platform tool leverages the data, logic, and workflow capabilities found in the greater Force.com platform. Among the features included in Visualforce are the following: * Pages, which allow developers to create pages using standard Web technologies. * Components, which allow companies to assemble current user interface elements in a new UI. * Logic Controllers for creating user interface behavior. Visualforce will be available for developer preview next week and generally available in the fourth quarter.
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By MICHAEL LIEDTKE  SAN FRANCISCO - Online software pioneer Salesforce.com Inc. will help Internet search leader Google Inc. sell ads as part of a partnership that falls short of Wall Street's anticipation since word of the alliance leaked last month.
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NEW YORK - Hosted CRM (customer relationship management) evangelist Salesforce.com Inc. began a new branding campaign this week to draw attention to its customer-service support functionality, launching a new Web site at Supportforce.com and announcing a batch of partnerships with top call center infrastructure vendors.