salesforce.com

Salesforce tool a key part of platform push

Salesforce.com on Wednesday said it has launched a new tool, Visualforce, that enables its customers to build custom user interfaces for applications running on the company's hosted infrastructure.

The new tool is a key part of the company's platform-as-a-service business line, called Force.com. Salesforce, best known for its software-as-a-service customer relationship management (CRM) applications, is branching out into the business of providing cloud-computing services.

CEO Marc Benioff has said the platform-as-a-service business represents "Salesforce.com's second decade....it's our next area of investment."

Visualforce, which Salesforce calls a "user interface as … Read more

Google may be beating Microsoft at its own game

Nick Carr has a brilliant analysis of the current battlefield between Google and Microsoft. Microsoft may have the most money in the bank, but Google is the one disrupting the industry and making Microsoft play by its rules.

The way Google is doing this is, as Nick suggests, a page right out of Microsoft's book:

One of the cornerstones of Microsoft's competitive strategy over the years has been to redefine competitors' products as features of its own products. Whenever some upstart PC software company started to get traction with a new application - the Netscape browser is the most famous example - Microsoft would incorporate a version of the application into its Office suite or Windows operating system, eroding the market for the application as a standalone product and starving its rival of economic oxygen (ie, cash). It was an effective strategy as well as a controversial one.… Read more

Salesforce.com + Google Apps (Verdict: Good, but occasionally frustrating)

I started using the Salesforce.com/Gmail integrated product this weekend and was largely happy with the experience. The main thing for my company is getting information into one centralized system. We do so very effectively with our developer sites (wiki-based) but have been using SF.com with only middling success. My theory on the Gmail integration is that it will help to enforce information sharing amongst our staff.

My other theory is that we can eventually get rid of Outlook. If there is any app that people are more addicted to than Outlook, it's Gmail. And now we've suckered them into using it for business. … Read more

What you need from your e-mail system (Test-driving Google Apps Premier)

Before I became a marketing wonk I was a knowledgeable technologist, which is probably why I've never once enjoyed any e-mail system that I have used or implemented. Over the last 15 years, I have tried pretty much everything, from Pine to Zimbra, to MS Exchange to Lotus Notes and several different IMAP and POP options. Every time it's the same thing--the system works within reason but is never great. And there is always something that bites you in the rear.

I first started outsourcing e-mail to managed providers in 2003 when I worked for a CEO who demanded MS Exchange and we only had Linux boxes. It was never great and it was too expensive to boot. But the offerings have gotten much better and at this point I can't see a small- or medium-sized business running its own mail server. It's just not necessary.

Here are my fundamental hopes for e-mail:

Reliable delivery of mail (dare to dream) Reliable delivery of mail on mobile devices (Blackberry and iPhone) Shared calendaring with administrator abilities (i.e. admin access) Backup and recovery Reliable SPAM prevention Sync across multiple computers and devices

… Read more

Bungee Labs extends its application hosting options

Bungee Labs is extending the hosting options for its Web application development environment, Bungee Connect. Today, developers using the Bungee Connect development environment can host their applications on Bungee's multitenant grid in the U.S. and Europe or on Amazon EC2. Beginning in July in public beta, organizations will be able to deploy Bungee Connect applications via the new Bungee Application Server on their own hosting infrastructure.

Bungee Labs, along with Coghead, Amazon EC2, Google App Engine, Joyent, Mosso, salesforce.com, NetSuite, Microsoft and others, is paving the way to platforms-as-a-service--hosted infrastructure for developing and delivering Web applications. … Read more

CODA to stress test the Salesforce platform

Salesforce.com is finally getting beyond its CRM roots. At Dreamforce Europe in London on May 7th, CODA is launching CODA 2go, an enterprise accounting system built on the Force.com platform and integrated with the Salesforce CRM application. CODA 2go will handle revenue and financial management and procurement.

CODA is claiming that 2go will be the "most functionally advanced on-demand accounting application available." At this point there aren't many comparables. Workday has entered the ring. NetSuite offers financials as part of its on-demand suite, and recently added real-time management and consolidation capabilities for companies that are … Read more

Zoho enhances its CRM application for enterprises

On the heels of Salesforce.com integrating with Google Apps, Zoho on Wednesday announced enhancements to its Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition, adding role-based security administration, SSL support, integration with Zoho's spreadsheet, custom fields, and other features.

The cost of the Zoho CRM Enterprise Edition is $25 per user per month, with the first three users free of charge. The Zoho CRM Professional Edition is $12 per user per month.

In a blog post this week, Sridhar Vembu, CEO of Zoho parent company AdventNet, took issue with Salesforce's business model, noting that his competitor spends nearly eight times as … Read more

Before Salesforce.com-Google lovefest came Zoho dalliance

Only months before Saleforce.com and Google integrated their Web applications, Salesforce.com offered to buy Zoho, a direct competitor of Google Apps.

Sridhar Vembu, the CEO of Zoho parent company AdventNet, divulged that juicy nugget in a blog posting following the much-ballyhooed Google-Salesforce.com tie-up. Zoho makes Web-based productivity and business applications.

Vembu said that the proposed deal was never close to consummation, but it wasn't over the price tag.

He said that the Zoho and Salesforce.com business models are fundamentally at odds because Salesforce.com spends much more proportionately on marketing and sales. He also accused … Read more

You heard it here first. Microsoft won't phone Benioff to become his new best friend

With Google teaming up with Salesforce.com, might Steve Ballmer be tempted to phone up Marc Benioff and strike a similar deal? The short answer is no. The longer answer is more complicated.

Google's agreement to integrate its office productivity applications with Salesforce's customer relationship management software obviously is a big deal. In his prepared remarks, Eric Schmidt laid it on thick with his rehearsed line about the "old" business model being replaced by the "new" model. (Gee, I wonder who he has in mind?)

But industry politics are only part of the story. … Read more