Salesforce.com Tightens Ties To Office 2003

Ready to go live Thursday to all Salesforce customers - and included in the subscription price -- the new salesforce.com Office Edition uses XML and Web services technology to tightly couple with the applications in Microsoft Office 2003.

One example of that tight integration: Office 2003 adds "Salesforce" to its menu bar, allowing users to access all data and reports in the Salesforce service, and import it to any Office application.

Out of the box, or rather out of the ASP, salesforce.com Office Edition offers only import capabilities. That can be changed easily, said Ron Hess, CRM program manager for Neoforma. The San Jose, Calif., company integrates salesforce.com into its own Web-based supply chain service for the healthcare industry. "It's really way simple to build bidirectional access [to the Salesforce.com service] with their APIs," said Hess.

Gytis Barzdukas, Microsoft's director of Office Product Management, said salesforce.com Office Edition is available immediately to all Microsoft channel partners. The San Francisco-based ASP pays its partners 10 percent of any recurring revenue.