Dreamforce 2017: Salesforce Names Google As ‘Preferred’ Cloud Partner

Saleforce has agreed a deal with Google that makes the search giant a “preferred” supplier of cloud infrastructure, as well as integrating services such as Gmail and Google Analytics into Salesforce’s cloud-based CRM tools.

The deal echoes a similar arrangement announced last year with Amazon Web Services (AWS), Amazon’s industry-leading public cloud platform, in which AWS became Salesforce’s first “preferred” cloud supplier.

Salesforce, which announced the Google deal at its Dreamforce 2017 event in San Francisco, said it would use Google Cloud Platform for its core service as it expands into overseas markets. The AWS arrangement did not have a specific focus on international infrastructure.

Cloud-based apps

Microsoft, which competes with AWS for leadership in the cloud infrastructure market, looked into acquiring Salesforce two years ago, a move that would have combined Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure leadership with Salesforce’s popular cloud-based applications.

The partnership with Google similarly combines a leading infrastructure platform with leading cloud tools, and is to allow data to be exchanged directly between applications such as Salesforce Lightning and Gmail.

Salesforce users will be able to view their CRM data in Gmail as well as linking Gmail customer interactions into Salesforce, for instance, which can identify high priority emails and suggest actions based on their content.

Salesforce’s Marketing Cloud will link to Google Analytics, allowing marketers to view cross-platform marketing data on a single dashboard.

Lightning for Gmail is already available, while the Analytics integration is set to launch in the first half of next year, along with other integrations that are set to launch during 2018.

Making the cloud ‘smarter’

“From productivity apps, email and analytics, to sales, service and marketing apps, this partnership will help make our customers smarter and more productive,” stated Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff.

Diane Greene, chief executive of Google Cloud, said the deal would be a “big win” for customers and partners.

In May of last year said it would run its core services on Amazon’s AWS, including Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, App Cloud, Community Cloud and Analytics Cloud.

The announcement followed a major cloud outage in North America that resulted in data loss for some customers and a previous outage in March 2016 that knocked out Salesforce services for more than 10 hours.

Salesforce had already shifted some of its services to AWS, including Salesforce IoT Cloud and Heroku.

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