In the report, Business Insider says RBC Capital Markets predict Google will make a move for Salesforce. By tying up with Microsoft’s major enterprise software, Google can be more competitive in efforts to catch cloud rivals. However, Google has increasingly wanted to make inroads against Microsoft in the enterprise productivity sector but has largely failed. Office and other cloud services from Microsoft dominate business. Indeed, a recent report shows that 97 percent of participating organizations use Azure. Many more say they plan to shift to Microsoft’s platform.
Targeting Microsoft
Salesforce would be an ideal candidate to boost Google’s appeal as it competes with Azure. Salesforce is Microsoft’s biggest competitor in the software-as-a-service (SaaS) market. Microsoft and Salesforce have collaborated in recent years but remain direct competitors. Those collaborations reflect the changing cloud landscape where organizations are pursuing a multi-cloud approach. Microsoft and Salesforce have been partners before, such as the SalesForce1 Windows 10 app supporting (now defunct) Continuum, while the company also adopted Outlook for its email management. Of course, that does not remove the fact that Salesforce and Microsoft are CRM rivals. Indeed, the relationship between the companies took on a familiar frosty feel during Microsoft’s $27 billion LinkedIn acquisition. Salesforce was a rival bidder and warned regulators to watch the deal closely.
