The big news of the day has been the expansion of a partnership between Salesforce.com and Google, in which Salesforce will offer Google Apps on its cloud computing infrastructure, integrating the functionality with Salesforce's CRM services.
Some industry analysts are saying that the partnership will give Google Apps a bigger presence in the enterprise scene and will put more pressure on Microsoft to offer a SaaS version of Office.
InformationWeek's Paul McDougall reported that the alliance of the companies could mean "a formidable challenge" to Microsoft's efforts in the SMB applications arena. Apparently the two companies are billing the offering as "the world's largest cloud computing platform for building and running applications." McDougall reports that other competition includes the Accelerate program through which Oracle offers its Oracle's Siebel CRM On-Demand.
At Network World, Mitchell Ashley agreed with that sentiment, calling it a strong validation of Google Apps and noting that it was part of a long "Chinese water torture strategy" by Google to erode Microsoft's revenue stream from Office.
Doug Henschen of Intelligent Enterprise makes the interesting point that the offering has an odd name...Salesforce for Google Apps rather than "Google Apps for Salesforce," noting that customers are more likely to be drawn to the offering initially for Salesforce.
I wouldnt get to worried. Both are in their infancy in terms of being robust apps. Btw, microsoft has offered their entire portfolio as saas since 2004. Via wholesale hosting partners. Still, they both have their place.