We are excited to announce a new partnership with Google that will help you get even more out of your on-demand applications -- both CRM and beyond. Today, we launched Salesforce for Google Apps, which combines the power of Salesforce CRM with the Google applications many of us are already using, including Gmail, Calendar, Google Talk, Documents & Spreadsheets, and Presentation in a seamlessly integrated, affordable, and 100% on-demand new offering.

At the same time, we have unveiled a new "Google" category on AppExchange which already features ten applications, and will undoubtedly grow as more developers build joint applications on the Force.com and Google platforms-as-a-service.

When you are running a business, you have better things to worry about than manually syncing unwieldy Excel spreadsheets and trying to keep track of different versions of Powerpoint email attachments. With Salesforce for Google Apps and the complementary set of applications in the new Google category on AppExchange, all of your organization's critical information and communication data are now fully and automatically synced on-demand, accessible from any browser on any device. This is exciting news for Salesforce customers and Google users -- the two biggest on-demand companies in the world coming together for the End of Software and the End of Office!

Yesterday Google unveiled App Engine and App Gallery, which some bloggers have likened to AppExchange. But it's really quite different.

First, what is App Engine? Like Force.com, it is a web app development platform-as-a-service. App Gallery is the directory for sharing apps built on the App Engine.

There are two important distinctions. First, the platform and apps at least right now are focused around the Consumer Web, for example games, news, finance, sports, etc. Second, as shown in this Youtube clip, App Engine development is more focused on code-driven development.

Force.com gives application developers a choice of code or clicks (or both) to build, customize, and integrate. App Engine fills an important gap for building, hosting and sharing consumer web apps - and we expect to see that across App Engine and AppExchange, more and more people around the world will be able to make their personal and professional lives easier with platforms-as-a-service and generally the On-Demand model.

Kudos to AppExchange partners Firepond (quoting & configuration), InsideView (sales intelligence), LucidEra (analytics), Marketo (marketing automation), TerrAlign (mapping and territory planning), and Verticals onDemand (industry customization templates for Salesforce CRM) for sweeping six of seven of this year's coveted Beagle Research Group 2008 WizKids Awards that showcase "some of the brightest emerging companies in front office computing."

This is well-deserved validation for some of our most popular AppExchange solutions, as well as wonderful proof that AppExchange is the authoritative one-stop shop for SaaS applications.

Congratulations to Brazilian ISV partner Datasul for listing the milestone 800th app on AppExchange! Datasul SA Fleet Management is a corporate fleet management solution for tracking trucks, buses, forklifts, tractors, and other vehicles. Datasul joins our over 400 partners worldwide with pre-integrated, pre-certified solutions listed on AppExchange.

Did you know that over one-third of Salesforce customers have global deployments and that we have AppExchange customers from over 75 countries? Not surprisingly, a large number of you are in Europe. As such, AppExchange is planning a large presence at our upcoming first-ever Dreamforce Europe event May 7-8 in London.

Here is a preview of some of our proposed sessions-

• AppExchange: List Building and eMail Marketing
• AppExchange 101: 88 Solutions for Improving Agent Productivity
• IT 2.0 with the AppExchange Directory
• Hands On Training: Foundation: Analytics & AppExchange for Nonprofits

We decided to let the attendees decide on the conference sessions and agenda, so get your votes in soon. See you in London!

FYI, I will be speaking about B2B social networking at the upcoming Software Business SLAM (Sales, Licensing, Alliances, and Marketing) Conference April 3 and Web 2.0 Expo April 22-25, both in San Francisco. Hope to see you there.

Here are the session abstracts-

B2B Social Networking: Important Lessons for Software Marketing and Product Development

What does the rising prominence of online social networking mean for today's B2B software companies? How can software companies ensure their marketing and product development strategies fully consider these new technologies and user behavior? What lessons can learned from the successes of consumer networks such as Facebook and YouTube?

Join Clara Shih, Founder of Faceforce, the first enterprise mash-up on Facebook, and Product Line Director of AppExchange at Salesforce.com, to learn about the future of B2B social networking and strategies for building better customer relationships and communities using social data. You will hear about innovative ways software companies are transforming their customer, recruiting, reseller, and vendor relationships with online social networking technology.

Faceforce: Bringing the Power of the Social Graph to Enterprise Apps
Clara Shih (Salesforce / Faceforce)

Faceforce, which integrates Salesforce CRM with Facebook, is the first social enterprise mash-up. Approximately once per decade, the enterprise software industry undergoes a fundamental shift ushered in by a new disruptive technology. The 70s gave rise to mainframe computing, led by companies like IBM. In the 80s, the introduction of PCs gave rise to client-server computing, dominated by Microsoft, Oracle, and others. During the 90s, the Internet shook things up once again, making possible new innovations led by companies like Google, Yahoo!, eBay, and Salesforce.com. Today, we are seeing a fourth wave of “socially aware” enterprise applications.

This session will walk through the thinking behind Faceforce, future development plans, and how the social networking phenomenon at large will fundamentally change how business software is developed, deployed, and used. We will explore how the lines are increasingly blurring between the consumer and enterprise spaces, and what this means to businesses trying to market and sell their products.