06/05/2007

Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the market and technology leader in on-demand business services, and Google [Nasdaq: GOOG] today announced that they have formed a strategic global alliance to help millions of businesses leverage the Internet to achieve success.

ebizQ received the following:

The newest product resulting from this alliance, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, is a robust offering that combines the power of Salesforce on-demand CRM applications with the Google AdWords™ platform to achieve integrated sales and marketing success. This joint solution provides businesses of all sizes with the same tools used by larger enterprises to successfully attract and retain customers.

“The Web has quickly become the most powerful tool small and medium sized businesses can use to compete and win in today’s economy,” said Eric Schmidt, chief executive officer at Google. “Combining the power and simplicity of Salesforce with Google AdWords helps businesses find and keep customers to ultimately drive their continued success.”

“The alliance of Google and salesforce.com brings together the world’s leading platforms to empower small and medium size businesses to accelerate and thrive,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com. “The Internet has completely changed the landscape for small and medium businesses and the alliance between Google and salesforce.com enables companies of all sizes to acquire new customers and streamline their business to experience unfettered success.”

“Now there is a single online destination for businesses of all sizes to attract and acquire new customers, while closely tracking the return on their valuable marketing dollars,” said Sheryl Sandberg, Vice President, global online sales and operations at Google. “This alliance is about introducing new audiences to the benefits of online advertising, marketing and sales through the integration of two world-class solutions to help small and medium businesses succeed in today’s global marketplace.”

Salesforce.com and Google Strategic Alliance

Both salesforce.com and Google have revolutionized how customers and businesses utilize the Internet. Salesforce.com has altered the business software landscape by delivering an award-winning CRM application as a subscription-based service over the Web, completely eliminating the need for software, hardware or IT support. At the same time, Google has transformed the advertising industry with Google AdWords, enabling marketers to spend less money and still reach a larger percentage of their key audience by associating ads with specific keyword searches.

Now, salesforce.com and Google have formed a strategic global alliance to mutually use their product, packaging, and promotional resources to enable companies of all sizes to realize unprecedented levels of success. As part of the alliance, salesforce.com will be the first on-demand company to resell the Google AdWords platform, acting as an official distribution channel for the Google AdWords product. The alliance is across 43 countries and encompasses distribution, technology and co-marketing efforts.

Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords – The Engine for Business Growth

Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords provides an integrated and effective solution that gives companies of all sizes all the tools they need to acquire new customers and grow their business. By encapsulating every element of the customer lifecycle - advertising, creating leads, closing business and retaining customers - in one solution, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords enables any company to jump start their business by creating an online marketing and sales presence.