Cisco and Salesforce formed a strategic alliance to jointly develop and market cloud and Internet of Things (IoT) products. And they’re also integrating some customer service technology.

For cloud, the two will integrate Cisco Spark and WebEx into Salesforce’s Sales Cloud and Service Cloud. With this integration, joint customers will be able to communicate using Cisco’s chat, video, and voice applications without leaving Salesforce or having to install a plug-in. It will also eliminate the hassle of toggling between apps.

The companies will also integrate Cisco Jasper and the Salesforce IoT Cloud to provide businesses with a more comprehensive view of their IoT services. For example, a fleet of connected trucks with IoT devices managed by Cisco Jasper can pass data to the Salesforce IoT Cloud. In turn, with the Salesforce IoT Cloud the truck management company can build business logic to provide customers with real-time delivery updates.

In a recent interview with SDxCentral, Sanjay Khatri, a product manager with Cisco’s Jasper, said the consumer aspect of IoT has gotten a lot of press, but the real growth has been on the business-to-business side. “Our biggest growth industry is the connected car,” said Khatri. “Industrial applications are close behind: smart cities, retail growth, and fleet management.”

Jasper is being used by 5,800 enterprises worldwide, connecting 34 million devices. It’s growing at about 1.5 million devices per month, according to Khatri. As of June at Cisco Live, Jasper supported 22 car manufacturers.

In addition to its cloud and IoT integrations, the two companies will deliver joint customer service, combining Cisco's Unified Contact Center Enterprise with the Salesforce Service Cloud. With these two systems, customers will be able to manage call centers more efficiently.

The cloud and IoT integrated offerings are slated for availability in the second half of 2017. Customers for the cloud integration will need a Salesforce license and a Cisco Spark and/or WebEx license. The integrations between Cisco's Unified Contact Center Enterprise and Salesforce's Service Cloud are available today.

The two companies are also planning additional integrations in the future.