Microsoft and salesforce.com announce global, strategic partnership [Microsoft News Center]

Meanwhile, Former Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer wins Clippers bidding war for $2 billion (LA Times)

"On Thursday Microsoft Corp. and salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) announced a strategic partnership to create new solutions that connect salesforce.com’s customer relationship management (CRM) apps and platform to Microsoft Office and Windows so customers can be more productive. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

“We are excited to partner with salesforce.com and help customers thrive in a mobile and cloud-first world,” said Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft. “Working together we’ll deliver new solutions that connect the customer insights of Salesforce to the cloud productivity of Office 365, the cloud platform of Azure and the mobility of Windows, so our customers can do more.”"

Microsoft and salesforce.com announce global, strategic partnership