Salesforce.com and Google Make a Tandem Jump into Cloud Application Development

| May 29, 2009 | Managed IT Services | Competitive Update

| Analyst: Amy Larsen DeCarlo

Current Perspective: Positive
Vendor Importance: High
Market Impact: High

Event Summary

May 27, 2009 –- SaaS vendor Salesforce.com announced a new version of Force.com for Google App Engine which will provide developers with a set of tools and services they can use to produce applications for both Google and Salesforce.com environments. Developers can use the toolset to tap into the Java language support in Google App Engine in their application development projects on Force.com. Force.com for Google App Engine supplies developers a set of tools and services to build new kinds of Web and business applications entirely in the cloud. Instead of having to manage and maintain their own on-premise infrastructure, developers can use real-time cloud computing infrastructure from Google and Salesforce.com to develop and deploy new applications on the Web. Force.com for App Engine promises to accelerate the success developers have had with App Engine in building Web applications, and makes it easy for them to integrate their App Engine apps to enterprise data stored in Force.

Analytical Summary

• Current Perspective: Positive on Salesforce.com’s release of Force.com for Google App Engine, a tool set developers building applications in Google’s App Engine development environment can use to tap into resources such as Java libraries and the SOAP API in the Force.com platform to expedite development. This should help boost development of more cloud-based applications that merge the corporate orientation of the Salesforce.com environment with the more consumer-oriented social networking and collaborative functions associated with the Google application environment.

• Vendor Importance: High to Google because the introduction of Force.com for Google App Engine not only serves as a strong endorsement for the Google application development environment from a company with a cloud application development platform that has more than 100,000 business applications running on it, but should also help the company further penetrate the corporate environment by driving the creation of both commercial and custom applications.

• Market Impact: High on the cloud services space because beyond encouraging corporate Google application development, by allowing a Google App Engine application to make a Web Services API call into the Force.com environment (see “Salesforce.com Puts the “Force” in SaaS Application Development,” December 11, 2008) the door is opened to greater resource sharing and more sophisticated development among cloud application development platforms. This should lead to the development of higher functioning applications and quicker development times which will fuel even greater cloud services momentum.

Recommended Competitor Actions

• Microsoft, Rackspace, and other companies that offer platform-as-a-service environments for developers to create cloud services should seriously consider how they can open up their environments to third-party partners to foster greater development without risking the stability or security of their platforms.

CLIENTS ONLY

Current Perspective

Competitive Positives and Concerns

Recommended Vendor Actions

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