Salesforce Invests In Docker, Forges Channel Alliance Through Its MuleSoft Platform

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Salesforce

Salesforce is forging an alliance with Docker around the MuleSoft integration technology the CRM leader purchased earlier this year, the companies said Thursday.

As part of the emerging relationship, Salesforce Ventures has invested an undisclosed amount in Docker—an extension of the container pioneer's $75 million Series E round from 2017, Betty Junod, Docker's vice president of product and partner marketing, told CRN.

The two companies are working together to integrate Docker Enterprise and MuleSoft's Anypoint Platform to seamlessly connect home-grown apps—both legacy and net new—with those from Software-as-a-Service vendors like Salesforce.

[Related: Docker Introduces Modernization Program For Legacy Windows Server Apps]

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While they've already identified customers using MuleSoft Anypoint and Docker Enterprise together, new tooling and integrations will "make things more automated and faster," Junod said, "so they work very nicely out of the box together."

Salesforce and Docker will also coordinate on going to market, including through joint engagement with their channels. That starts with support for global systems integrators that currently have practices delivering both technologies, Junod told CRN.

"Not only are our sellers working together, but we're also starting to work with our mutual ecosystems to implement and advise customers on getting these solutions up and running more quickly," she told CRN.

"They'll join in their selling motion, talking to customers together about the shared potential of using both solutions," Junod said of partners.

Salesforce and Docker are working with those SIs on creating blueprints and reference architectures to aid their work implementing and integrating both technologies for customers, she said.

The alliance will enable legacy applications modernized with Docker Enterprise and new ones built as micro-services to directly plug into the MuleSoft Anypoint application network, unlocking their logic and data with APIs, said Patrick Chanezon, Docker's chief developer advocate.

Once a custom application is "Dockerized" and connected to the application network, it will become available in Salesforce's Customer 360 platform, which the cloud-software vendor rolled out in October at its Dreamforce conference, Chanezon said.

In March, Salesforce agreed to purchase MuleSoft for $6.5 billion—the largest acquisition in the company's history.