Google and Salesforce.com have announced an alliance to collaborate across multiple areas including technology development, marketing, distribution, communities and 'corporate philanthropy'.

The move came as no surprise to industry experts. "When Google and Salesforce let it be known that they were working on something jointly, there was a lot of speculation over what it might be," said David Bradshaw, principal analyst at Ovum.

"There were even rumours that Google might be buying Salesforce, but that rumour was easy to dismiss because the two companies would have gone to great lengths to keep negotiations of that kind completely secret.

"In the end, it became clear that it was going to be an alliance of some kind. Some may see this as an anti-climax, but clearly this is just a first step and there will be further steps."

Google and Salesforce have not offered a roadmap for future development, but there "clearly must be more coming", according to Bradshaw.

"Salesforce is asking its customers to tell it what they would like to see via its IdeaExchange, " he said.

"Meanwhile, for those who are keen to get on with developing their own stuff, Salesforce has given access to the Google AdWords APIs via its Apex programming environment."

The agreement allows Salesforce.com to become the first on-demand company to resell the Google AdWords platform.

The deal, which will operate across 43 countries, sees the launch of Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, an integrated sales and marketing offering that combines Salesforce on-demand CRM applications with the Google AdWords.

The service is touted as able to encapsulate every element of the customer lifecycle including advertising, creating leads, closing business and retaining customers.

As a first step in a "long programme" the offering makes perfect sense, according to Bradshaw.

"In an age when the web is becoming key to success in almost any market, making it easier for smaller companies to buy, use and monitor returns from Google AdWords is a very positive development," he said.

"These types of companies will generally not have the technical or marketing skills to do it on their own. We therefore welcome this joint product from Salesforce and Google and look forward to more of the same."

Joint customers can go to the Google AdWords Salesforce site to login to their AdWords account, and can access Salesforce directly at salesforce.com/google.