Salesforce, Cisco Lend Each Other A Hand

Salesforce.com and Cisco unveiled a partnership around call center technology that should help Cisco learn how to sell to smaller companies while providing Salesforce with a telephony application to complement its online software suite.

Unlike a lot of ballyhooed technology hook-ups, both companies are likely to get a lot out of this deal. For Salesforce, partnership with an old-line enterprise vendor like Cisco is yet more validation for its software-as-a-service (SaaS) platform approach. In fact, during an event in New York to introduce the partnership today, Saideep Raj, managing director of Accenture's SaaS implementation group (essentially folks responsible for integrating SaaS applications with other technology run by their customers) said "these capabilities are at industrial strength." For Cisco, this deal â€"- along with its acquisition of video conferencing giant Tandberg last week -- helps the networking giant make inroads into what it sees as an extremely lucrative communications market.

And while the Tandberg deal (and the acquisition of consumer video gadget Flip) helps Cisco fill holes in its product line-up, the tie-up with Salesforce.com will give it more brand recognition among the general business public.

Customers will be buying the call center application from joint Salesforce-Cisco sales teams, who will split the $250 per user/per month revenue down the middle. The pairing of sales reps from the two companies is also sure to help the traditionally enterprise-focused Cisco learn a lot about selling to smaller businesses, and selling subscriptions rather than perpetual licenses.

At least that's the theory. Mark Angelino, Salesforce.com EVP of customer success and adoption, mentioned over lunch that he thinks it's going to be very hard for Oracle to merge its hardware and software sales teams once the Sun acquisition closes. Hardware and software sales people "are very different kinds of animals," he said.

I wonder how that will work out for Cisco and Salesforce.com sales teams.

[Image source: dgrobinson via Flickr]