Salesforce.com delivers new Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs, giving developers new capabilities to harness the power of cloud computing for application development

Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) has expanded its global strategic alliance with Google, making it easier for developers to harness the power of cloud computing for Web and business application development and deployment.

The new Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs provides a set of 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 their applications and projects on Force.com.
Freely available at http://developer.force.com/ and http://code.google.com/p/apex-google-data/, the new toolkit will help developers bring together data and content in Google Apps™ with the database, logic and workflow capabilities in Force.com. The Force.com Platform-as-a-Service and Google's open APIs are creating new opportunities for partners and developers to build powerful new business applications delivered completely via the cloud.

“Google and salesforce.com share a common vision for making the cloud accessible to all developers,” said Vic Gundotra, vice president of engineering, Google. “Our work with salesforce.com will help make cloud computing increasingly accessible and powerful for developers, resulting in better web applications and experiences.”

“Bringing together the Google and salesforce.com platforms will enable the creation of powerful new applications delivered completely in the cloud,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. “Developers now can take advantage of the virtually unlimited power and infrastructure of multiple cloud computing architectures from Google and salesforce.com to build the next-generation of business applications.”

Force.com Platform and Google's open APIs – enabling developer success
Salesforce.com and Google's 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, together will enable the creation of powerful new innovative applications delivered on the Web.

Additionally, the Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs creates new opportunities for developers and ISVs to extend the widely adopted Salesforce for Google Apps. The toolkit gives developers and partners the ability to create business applications that extend Salesforce for Google Apps as well as build entirely new applications to help customers run their entire business in the cloud. The toolkit will accelerate the creation of applications like sales quote generation and business forecasting that can be deployed by customers with just a few clicks via the AppExchange. Already, 6 of the top 10 applications on salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace are Google-related partners, demonstrating the growing customer demand for third-party applications that leverage multiple cloud platforms.

CODA, one of Europe's leading financial applications providers, has built a Web application prototype that takes data from Google Spreadsheets and brings it directly into their Order-to-Cash module of CODA 2go, a financials application built on Force.com. The initial prototype can be used to perform a cost allocation over extracted transaction details from CODA 2go. Users can apportion new values by editing the cells used by formulas in the spreadsheet; the results are then posted in the form of a journal back into CODA 2go from within the Google Spreadsheet user interface via a Visualforce-powered Google Gadget™.

“Following the launch of the Salesforce for Google Apps, we have prototyped a CODA 2go-specific Google Apps integration,” said Jeremy Roche, CEO of CODA, a leading European financials application provider. “Our experience of producing finance software over decades is that accountants love manipulating transactions in spreadsheets. Now in just a few weekends, we have produced an on-demand solution that uses Google Spreadsheets and Force.com.”