Google and Saleforce.com to team against Microsoft?

The Wall Street Journal this morning is reporting that talks are underway between Google and Salesforce.com concerning a partnership. The goal is to combine Google's email, instant messaging, and other online services with Salesforce.com's applications, effectively providing an alternative to Microsoft's desktop and business applications.

By teaming up, Google and Salesforce.com could be better equipped to contend with Microsoft, a mutual rival. Google has long competed with Microsoft in areas such as search and email. More recently, Google began offering online word-processing, spreadsheet and calendar services for consumers and businesses -- Web-based applications known as Google Apps -- that offer an alternative to Microsoft's productivity software.

Salesforce.com also competes with Microsoft's customer-relationship management software. Microsoft plans to offer a Web-based version of that software that could compete more directly with Salesforce.com.

I say, why stop there? Google should acquire Salesforce.com outright. That would put Google's best-in-class scalable infrastructure underneath Salesforce.com's best-in-class software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform. It would catapult Salesforce.com's position as a provider of enterprise applications to small and mid-size businesses, leapfrogging Microsoft's nascent attempts in this area.

A Google buyout of Salesforce.com? I think it's a real possibility.

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