Salesforce.com and Google expand alliance

Update at 11:01 a.m. PST, with historical information on the alliance.

Salesforce.com and Google announced on Monday an expanded alliance, aiming to offer a set of developer tools and service around cloud computing applications.

Force.com for Google App Engine is designed to enable developers to create applications in the cloud. Here's how it aims to work:

Force.com for Google App Engine is a Python library and test harness that lets you access the Force.com Web services API from within Google App Engine applications. Once it is installed in your Google App Engine application, that application can start to (seamlessly) make callouts to the Force.com Web services API. This API lets you query and manipulate data in your Force.com environment - effectively letting you tap into the Force.com platform from within the application.

Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO, noted in a statement that Salesforce and Google are on the same page when it comes to cloud computing and an open environment.

"We have an open vision for cloud computing," Benioff said. "Developers now can take advantage of the easy to use and rapidly scalable cloud computing infrastructure from Google and Salesforce.com to build and deliver powerful business applications."

This arrangement is the latest expansion of a deal Salesforce and Google struck in April, which called for linking Salesforce's customer relationship management software with Google Apps.

And in June, the companies expanded that initial deal with Salesforce creating the Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs, allowing developers to connect to data in Google Apps via the Force.com development platform.