Extended partnership gives Salesforce customers a home in the clouds, access to suite of Google offerings.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) announced today that it will offer its suite of consumer relationship management (CRM) applications to businesses through the Google (NASDAQ: GOOG) Apps cloud hosting platform.

The partnership, which builds on an existing alliance between Google and the software-as-a-service (SaaS) leader, signifies an accelerated campaign to upend Microsoft’s (NASDAQ: MSFT) old-line Office productivity suite by enabling businesses to run their operations entirely in the cloud.

Heralding the expanded partnership, Salesforce CEO Marc Beniof was his usual blunt self in his assessment of the disruptive impact new models of computing will have on traditional business lines.

Read more: internetnews.com 

Labels: business, microsoft, Salesforce

Google's phone-based automated local business search has gone live.

Users may dial 1-800-GOOG-411 (presumably North America only), give their location, and then the type of business they are looking for. Using speech recognition, GOOG-411 provides a list of matching entries and then connects callers to their choice.

No charges are involved apart from any associated with the original call.

Read more: itwire.com 

Labels: business, GOOG-411, local, mobile, phone

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer was one of the featured speakers at the Gartner Symposium in Orlando yesterday. His appearance wasn't streamed live, but archived video is now available via this page.

One of the big topics was the trend toward software applications being delivered as online services. In that specific area, Ballmer disputed Gartner analyst Yvonne Genovese's assertion that some of Microsoft's efforts look a lot like what Google has done. She was alluding to its Google Apps and Google Docs & Spreadsheets services.

Read more: seattlepi.com 

Labels: apps, business, docs, Spreadsheets, Steve Ballmer

Google plans to begin offering policy management and message recovery services for business customers using Gmail as part of their Google Apps Premier Edition subscriptions.

Having completed its acquisition of e-mail service provider Postini last month, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) is ready to enhance its enterprise software service, Google Apps Premier Edition, with Postini's technology.

Google on Wednesday plans to begin offering policy management and message recovery services for business customers using Gmail as part of their Google Apps Premier Edition subscriptions.

Full article: informationweek.com 

Labels: apps, business, Gmail, postini

Global consulting firm Capgemini believes that GoogleApps--Google's online alternative to Microsoft Office--appeals to more than college students and small businesses.

The two companies on Monday announced a partnership under which Capgemini will offer desktop support and installation services to large corporations that use Google Apps Premier Edition.

Google Apps--which includes Web-based Gmail, a calendar, and document editor--can fill a role in large corporations even though the product suite is used mainly by individuals and small businesses, according to Capgemini executives.

Full story: news.com 

Labels: apps, business, Capgemini

Google has launched a search engine service for small businesses that costs as little as $100 (£49) a year to run.

Google Custom Search Business is aimed at the millions of businesses that have a web presence but offer users no way of searching their website.

Dave Girouard, vice president and general manager, Google Enterprise, said: "While many of these businesses invest in search advertising and search engine optimization to help customers find their business, customers are left on their own to navigate content once they land on a site.

Read more: telegraph.co.uk 

Labels: business, enterprise, search

Google has rolled out a new e-mail migration tool for prospective business customers looking to switch their e-mail management tasks over to Google Apps. The new self-service mail migration tools enable system admins to copy existing mail from an IMAP server over to GMail.

The tools are available only for Google Apps Premier and Education Editions, individuals looking to migrate from an IMAP set up to GMail will still have to make the move by hand.

Full story: wired.com 

Labels: apps, business, mail, tools

Less than a week after Terry Semel stepped down as chief executive of Yahoo, Wenda Harris-Millard, chief sales officer in the U.S., has left the company.

In a statement on Sunday, Yahoo Inc. said that its veteran domestic sales officer has resigned, forcing the company to merge the two main parts of its US advertising business under one sales executive, David Karnstedt.

Karnstedt, currently senior vice president of Yahoo's Search sales business, would lead the newly merged sales teams as head of North American sales.

Read more: themoneytimes.com 

Labels: advertisements, business, sales, Yahoo

Google's chief executive, Eric Schmidt, has acknowledged that providing applications and other services to business customers will be an important strategy for maintaining growth of the company.

Speaking at a press event in Paris on Tuesday, Schmidt responded to a question on how Google intends to maintain its phenomenal growth rates when the stream of ad revenues from old media to new media, which has sustained the company so far, begins to plateau. "Small businesses and universities are likely to become a significant business for Google as [they] use our leverage in terms of sales and infrastructure," he said.

Full article: zdnetasia.com 

Labels: business, enterprise, Eric Schmidt, Media