Salesforce is also naming Google as a preferred infrastructure provider – but Salesforce is still keeping Amazon close.

Mitch Wagner, Executive Editor, Light Reading

November 7, 2017

3 Min Read
Google Joins With Salesforce to Mix Online, Offline Customer Analytics

SAN FRANCISCO -- Salesforce Dreamforce -- Google's enterprise momentum is building, as Google and Salesforce combine online and offline analytics in a deal announced Monday. Google also becomes a preferred Salesforce infrastructure partner -- but not the preferred infrastructure partner, a Salesforce executive noted carefully.

The analytics collaboration will allow enterprises to aggregate analytics for both online and offline customer interactions, according to company executives at a press conference Monday.

"The number one ask that I get is to combine our online and offline data together and map the customer journey," said Paul Muret, Google (Nasdaq: GOOG)'s vice president of display, video and analytics.

Enterprises will be able to gain insights about customer interactions with salespeople, email, website visits, ads and Google searches, the companies said in a statement.

Figure 1: Dressed for success at last year's Dreamforce. Dressed for success at last year's Dreamforce.

In addition to offering each others' services to customers, Google will continue to use Salesforce.com Inc. as its preferred internal CRM provider to connect with cloud customers, and Salesforce will use G Suite as its preferred email and productivity provider for its own use.

Salesforce isn't kicking Amazon Web Services Inc. to the curb. Salesforce now has "multiple best friends," as one analyst said during Q&A at a press conference announcing the Google-Salesforce partnership Monday. And Heroku, Salesforce's platform-as-a-service (PaaS), will continue to run on AWS.

Google Cloud will be a preferred public cloud provider for international Salesforce customers, while AWS will be an infrastructure partner for Canada and Australia, Salesforce says.

In addition to infrastructure, Google and Salesforce are integrating G Suite with Salesforce. Eligible Salesforce customers that are new to G Suite will be able to use the Google productivity platform for free for up to a year.

Salesforce has an existing partnership with Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT) on Office 365 integration, but the Google partnership goes deeper, Ryan Aytay, executive vice president for business development and strategic accounts, said. For example, users will be able to surface Salesforce information during Google Hangouts sessions.

Microsoft is increasingly competing with Salesforce, as Microsoft launched Dynamics 365 CRM about a year ago. At the same time, Salesforce introduced integration with Google Gmail and Google Sheets. (See Salesforce, Microsoft Spar Some More.)

Salesforce opposed Microsoft's LinkedIn acquisition last year, saying the LinkedIn data would give Microsoft an unfair competitive advantage. (See Microsoft to Close LinkedIn Acquisition Within Days.)

Microsoft is dominating the global software-as-a-service (SaaS) market, according to a March analyst report. (See Microsoft, Salesforce Dominating SaaS Market, Report Finds.)

At its Dreamforce conference this year, the company is focused on showing off its artificial intelligence technology to demonstrate how even non-technical users can get more value from customer insights. (See At Dreamforce 2017, Salesforce Doubling Down on AI.)

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— Mitch Wagner Follow me on Twitter Visit my LinkedIn profile Visit my blog Follow me on Facebook Editor, Enterprise Cloud News

About the Author(s)

Mitch Wagner

Executive Editor, Light Reading

San Diego-based Mitch Wagner is many things. As well as being "our guy" on the West Coast (of the US, not Scotland, or anywhere else with indifferent meteorological conditions), he's a husband (to his wife), dissatisfied Democrat, American (so he could be President some day), nonobservant Jew, and science fiction fan. Not necessarily in that order.

He's also one half of a special duo, along with Minnie, who is the co-habitor of the West Coast Bureau and Light Reading's primary chewer of sticks, though she is not the only one on the team who regularly munches on bark.

Wagner, whose previous positions include Editor-in-Chief at Internet Evolution and Executive Editor at InformationWeek, will be responsible for tracking and reporting on developments in Silicon Valley and other US West Coast hotspots of communications technology innovation.

Beats: Software-defined networking (SDN), network functions virtualization (NFV), IP networking, and colored foods (such as 'green rice').

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