20.9.07

Forcing the dream

by Ben Woodhead

SALESFORCE.COM has re-badged the development platform that it hopes will one day rival Microsoft's .Net and Sun's Java as it battles to convince customers that it is more than a CRM software maker.

Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff admitted that many of the company's customers still aren't aware that the one-time sales force automation specialist is branching out into new areas that include its so-called platform-as-a-service offering, which has been renamed Force.com.

Speaking to analysts and media at Salesforce.com's annual Dreamforce event in San Francisco, Mr Benioff said that he believed that the new Force.com brand would finally cut through to customers. ″We need to communicate (with customers) at a high level still that we have an applications strategy,” Mr Benioff said.

″A lot of our customers still only think we have one application.”

Instead, Salesforce.com is attempting to pitch itself as the underlying platform for software as a service (SaaS) using Force.com, the Apex custom language the company recently launched and its long-running third party developer program AppExchange.

A number of big name companies, including computer games developer Electronic Arts, have signed on to use Force.com, which is hosted by Salesforce.com from its two US datacentres.

But Mr Benioff acknowledged there was more work to do. In support of that work, and in response to growing demands from its user base, Salesforce.com today launched Visualforce, a tool that will for the first time allow customers to customise user interfaces. It also unveiled details of the latest release of its core technology, including the addition of two new applications: a content management system know as Salesforce Content and Salesforce Ideas, an application that works as a virtual suggestion box.

PC maker Dell has already deployed Salesforce Ideas and based its decision to relaunch a line of products with Linux installed on feedback collected from customers through its IdeaStorm website. The release bearing the two new applications, Salesforce Winter '08, will be available later this year.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Not to be the one to bring up Facebook, but I'll bring up Facebook.. :)

It seems to me that many web-based services (e.g., Facebook, SalesForce) are looking to be more of a platform than a specific service. While there are caveats to this, my experience is that these platform-centric sites tend to offer a cleaner, tighter experience--probably because they have to not only deal with the user, but with other developers as well.

--
Dustin Puryear
Author, Best Practices for Managing Linux and UNIX Servers
http://www.puryear-it.com