Google, Salesforce offer hybrid marketing software

By Eric Auchard

BERKELEY, California (Reuters) - Web search leader Google Inc. and marketing software maker Salesforce.com Inc. said on Tuesday they have jointly developed a new product that lets Google advertising be resold using Salesforce software, as part of a wide-ranging alliance.

Executives of Google and Salesforce, a pioneer in selling software as a Web service to business customers, said at a news conference that customers using Salesforce software would be able to resell Google Web advertising in 43 nations.

Financial details of the agreement were not disclosed.

Under the pact, Salesforce will resell the Google AdWords platform, acting as an official distribution channel, aiming at small and medium-sized business customers.

As an example of how the deal will work, a user visiting a business's site using Salesforce and Google software could click on a Google-delivered advertisement and fill out a form asking for more information on the business's products. This customer data would automatically be piped into the company's Salesforce customer database for further action and follow-up.

"We think... this is a natural partnership," Sheryl Sandberg, Google's vice president of global online sales and operations, said at the news conference. "Both companies are in the business of helping small businesses succeed."

Beyond the reseller relationship, the two companies are also working together to give independent software developers a way to create hybrid applications that combine Salesforce's sales and marketing software with Google AdWords ad services.

Programmers can create new applications for AdWords, using Salesforce's application development platform, known as Apex.

New Web-based software, which can be run as mini-applications known variously as "gadgets" or "widgets" inside Google or Salesforce software, will be certified under a program jointly run by the two companies.

AD-SUPPORTED BUSINESS SOFTWARE SEEN POSSIBLE

The new product, called Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, links Salesforce's Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software to Google's AdWords system for selling advertising to customers as they search the Web.

The new product replaces one of Salesforce's best-selling products, known as Salesforce Team Edition, which was introduced two years ago and which has thousands of existing customers, Salesforce.com Chief Executive Marc Benioff said.

Salesforce Group Edition costs $600 per five users a year.

The product will be free to nonprofit organizations, Benioff told the San Francisco news conference, reflecting the two companies' common philanthropic interests.

Under an existing program, Google already offers free advertising services to 2,500 nonprofit organizations around the world, Sandberg said.