Salesforce.com and Google announced a new level of integration today.  At first blush, a few things stand out:

• If you're already a user of Google Apps and Salesforce.com, installation is a breeze.  We configured the framework, then added Google Docs integration in roughly 2 minutes, 17 seconds.  (Yes, we counted.)  Now we can access Google Docs, and attach them to Salesforce.com records, from within Salesforce.
• The star of the show may be Gmail integration.  With two clicks, you can now attach messages sent from Gmail -- or even chats from Google Talk -- to a Salesforce record, where it is stored under Communication History.  This means that everybody in your organization will be able to access every email sent to a particular contact, without annoying CC::ed trails or desperate attempts to remember which keyword might bring a particular message from your 3 GB email archive to the top of your search results.  Nice!
• Events from within Salesforce can be viewed in Google Calendar, giving you a timeline view of your workflow.
• The demo people at Salesforce have pretty cool jobs.  Check out their 3-D demo:

Blackbaud, a provider of services designed specifically for nonprofits, has launched Blackbaud Labs, a testing ground for projects in the pipeline. Google famously maintains its own "labs", essentially a place where they can get free alpha-testers to fulminate over their not-yet-ready-for-primetime products.

The newer Blackbaud Labs currently features two products: a demo of Infinity, their Rich Internet Application (RIA) development platform; and a mash-up of Infinity with Microsoft's Virtual Earth API, which allows mapping of CRM data. The mapping demo features a pretty nifty screencast, highlighting both the potential and the developmental nature of the project.

Peter Gulka, of the Blackbaud User Society, seems pretty excited about the possibilities of Blackbaud Labs, but adds that he would really like to see Blackbaud offer an SDK or a free API. "What could we come up with on our own?" he wonders. "We're a smart bunch and I would love to see a developer community like SourceForge pop up here." Given the blazing successes of development communities for Facebook, Salesforce, and others, the potential for more great community-developed nonprofit resources seems high. You can let express your opinion in the Blackbus Labs Forums.