Salesforce for Google Apps lets business users that are registered both for Google Apps and Salesforce, to access Gmail, Google Calendar, Google Talk, and Google Docs from within the web based Salesforce CRM interface. Right now this service is offered for free to Salesforce customers, more advanced services to be added later for an additional cost.
What you can do if you are a Salesforce and Google Apps customer:
- Gmail in Salesforce - you can send messages to contacts from inside Salesforce or log e-mails sent from the Gmail interface in Salesforce
- Google Talk in Salesforce - communicate with colleagues right from the Salesforce web based interface
- Google Docs in Salesforce - share documents with your colleagues, partners and customers
- Google Calendar in Salesforce - manage multiple calendars (Google Calendar) in Salesforce
- iGoogle in Salesforce - customized page that shows everything that you consider important business wise
This new integration (as well as future ones) is meant to win some of the users of Microsoft's Dynamics CRM suite, though the main player that wins most is Google itself. Salesforce may be expanding its services this way, but Google is the one that gains more customers for Google Apps (from the Salesforce customer base). This move sparkled again the idea that Google may have the intention to purchase Salesforce, yet this idea was rejected by both sides. It would be logical to go this route since Google barely makes any profit by selling its software suite (the Google Apps business edition) compared to how much it makes from its advertising services, so increasing the offerings for business users by adding a Google CRM suite would mean more revenue.
