Sage has agreed a deal with Salesforce whereby its workers will use the customer relationship management vendor’s Customer Success Platform, in a surprise arrangement for the rival software firms.
Under the agreement Sage will also start working on the enterprise cloud platform Salesforce1, with the aim being to tailor it towards Sage’s speciality of small and medium businesses.
Santiago Solanas, chief marketing officer of Sage, said: "We are privileged to have the leading, global small and medium-sized business ecosystem.
"This agreement demonstrates our approach of partnering with world-class platform providers to provide more compelling cloud solutions for this ecosystem."
The deal will provoke speculation that Sage is seeking to leverage its traditional speciality in accounting software with Salesforce customers, with some of Sage’s products perhaps joining the Salesforce’s app marketplace in the near future.
The announcement also swiftly follows the appointment of Stephen Kelly as chief executive of Sage, which took place only last November.
Tyler Prince, EVP of channel and alliances at Salesforce, said: "We’re excited about our partnership with Sage, one of the world’s top software companies."
