5 weeks has passed and the integration news of Salesforce and Google Apps has simmered down, so what can we expect in the next 6-12 months?

Well, it’s no secret Zoho is trying to steal customers from SFDC.

Zoho is an Office Productivity Suite from AdventNet whoese mission is to build affordable software for businesses. For those in IT Strategy and Operations, AdventNet might be better known for IT Operations Management and IT Security Management software.

What will entice users to switch?

Lower Price? CRM Features? Or other integrated business software?

At the cost level, the first three users of the Enterprise Edition of Zoho CRM are free; from the fourth user the cost is $25 per user each month. This compares to Salesforce at $65 per user per month

The Crystal Ball

It wouldn’t surprise me that Google Apps will add project management to their suite of “Word, Excel, and Powerpoint” otherwise known as “Word Processor, Spreadsheet, Presentation” software on top of email and shared calendar – the basis of Office Collaboration.

I predict the next wave of enterprise on demand software will focus on HR and invoicing, especially in the billing subscription services. We’ve seen the impact of Workday in the Enterprise On-Demand markets.

It appears Zoho has the slight edge on this as they already offer the above services – and more.

Salesforce has AppExchange and Force.com with plenty of applications to choose from. For example, the best project management application on AppExchange is DreamTeam.

It will be a very interesting year!