Salesforce cosies up to Google

Salesforce.com has expanded its global strategic alliance with Google, making it easier for developers to harness cloud computing for web and business application development and deployment.

A new Force.com toolkit provides tools and services to empower developers to take advantage of Google Data APIs, a common set of standard APIs for interacting with data in Google services, within applications and projects on Force.com.

The APIs are freely available and promise to help developers bring together data and content in Google Apps with the database, logic and workflow capabilities in Force.com.

"Google and Salesforce.com share a common vision for making the cloud accessible to all developers," said Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering at Google.

"Our work with Salesforce.com will help make cloud computing increasingly accessible and powerful for developers, resulting in better web applications and experiences."

Gundotra added that the alliance gives developers a multi-cloud computing platform for building and running applications.

"The Force.com Platform-as-a-Service, encompassing a complete feature set for the creation of business applications, and Google's open APIs and technologies, will enable the creation of powerful applications delivered on the web," he said.