04 Jul Exciting developments as Salesforce.com and Microsoft come together…

Informed Training wanted to share this interesting article with you regarding the integration of Microsoft and Salesforce.com. It's great news for users with the promise of “additional value to the users of products from both companies”.

Long time rival companies Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. have announced the formation of a partnership that will allow their products to work better for businesses, to provide additional value to the users of products from both companies. "Customers need and want us to work together. They want to be able to work with Office 365, Excel, Outlook and Salesforce," Benioff said (Salesforce.com CEO). "This fundamentally advances our goal of making our products more useful." Microsoft will be integrating Salesforce apps into both the company's Windows and online Office platforms. It is expected that Salesforce products for Microsoft Office will be released next year. Salesforce's customer management apps will be made available on Windows PCs, mobile devices and tablets, while Salesforce users will have the ability to use Microsoft Office content such as PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets. This move furthers Nadella's (Microsoft CEO) goal of boosting Microsoft's Internet-based cloud software and corporate programs. In the past, Microsoft was criticized by analysts for its slow transition into the cloud-based, subscription software model that is currently preferred by smaller enterprises. "Nadella recognized the need to partner as the company cannot do this alone," said FBR Capital Markets analyst Daniel Ives. "Salesforce remains the pioneer of cloud computing and this significantly expands Microsoft's cloud opportunity."

Article originally published in Tech Times By Aaron Mamiit, 1st June 2014, http://www.techtimes.com/articles/7781/20140601/rivals-no-more-microsoft-salesforce-com-announce-partnership.htm