New Salesforce.com Lineup Targets On-Demand
Looking to expand its “software- as-service model” into the more
lucrative “on-demand” space, salesforce.com Monday took the wraps off new
tools and programs targeting the customer relationship management (CRM)
The San Francisco-based firm kicked off its first ever “Dreamforce” user
and developer conference with the launch of sforce version 2.0, the
company's application server software and Winter '04, the fourteenth
generation of salesforce.com and the third major release the company has
introduced this year.
The Winter '04 product, which salesforce.com says represents more than $150 million in research and infrastructure investment, offers on-demand CRM
customization, integration and globalization features. The platform comes
with more than 1000 state-of-the-art on-demand CRM features such as
integrated dashboards, workflow automation, real-time alerts, and contract
management.
salesforce.com chairman and CEO Marc Benioff said that in just four years, the company has signed on more than 8,000 customers and
110,000 subscribers “who are now successfully running their business with on
demand CRM.” He also said the company has been “so successful with on demand CRM that traditional software competition like Siebel are trying to jump back on the bandwagon.
Together with our partners, developers and customers, we have not only
proved the viability of on demand CRM — we have made it an unbridled
success.”
Salesforce.com rival Siebel made it clear it was not giving up its role
as a major CRM provider when the Dublin, Calif.-based company said it plans
on purchasing UpShot and Motiva last month.
In addition to customizing forms, Winter '04 also works with enterprise
applications and the most commonly used desktop applications such as
Microsoft Word and Microsoft Excel. The platform also supports 11 languages
and all currencies. In fact, the new global translation workbench has an
on-the-fly language translation and automatically summarizes data and
reports for managers in the language of their choice.
“The salesforce.com Winter '04 release provides the that our customers
need to grow their businesses worldwide,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and
CEO, salesforce.com. “We will continue to lead the CRM market with
innovation after innovation to ensure that our customers have the tools and
features they need to be successful. We have solved the problem of
client/server software delivery and implementation to provide on-demand CRM
success, not software, for everyone.”
Part of the strategy includes getting a massive amount of partners
onboard the new Winter '04/sforce 2.0 train and salesforce.com has had no
problem there.
The platform also includes sforce 2.0, the company's next
generation of on-demand application server software.
This is sforce's first makeover since it was unveiled
earlier this summer. The company said version 2.0 includes more enterprise
Web services APIs, more powerful and standards-based integration
capabilities including dynamic WSDL
In addition to Benioff, Salesforce.com has assembled supporters who say
they will implement and/or support Winter '04 and sforce 2.0. The list
includes partners such as Adam Bosworth, chief architect and senior vice
president, BEA Systems ; Blake Stone, CTO, Borland;
Halsey Minor, chairman and CEO, Grand Central; Chris Thomas, chief
e-strategist, Intel Corporation ; David Vaskevitch,
senior vice president and CTO, Microsoft Corporation ;
Ernie Cormier, vice president, Business Solutions, Nextel .
One in particular — AMD said Monday that it has signed
a three-year contract to standardize its 800 global subscribers on
salesforce.com's Winter '04 release. The company, which did more than $2.6
billion in sales in 2002, said it is looking at getting all of its
subscribers switched over in less than 45 days.
“With salesforce.com, AMD has a global CRM platform that can deliver a
solid return on our investment without compromising any functionality,” AMD
senior vice president of Worldwide Sales and Marketing Henri Richard said.
“Salesforce.com's executive dashboard provides instant access to the data
necessary to assess and guide AMD's global business. The end result is a
more productive sales organization that can focus on delivering technology
solutions that meet our customer's needs.”
Likewise, Sybase subsidiary iAnywhere Solutions gave
Salesforce.com the exclusive right to market its Mobile Sales platform. The
companies say the combination helps salesforce.com's existing mobile and
wireless solutions, providing both wireless and “sync and go” access to key
salesforce.com customer information from PDAs and smartphones.
“Through a partnership established with iAnywhere in early 2003, we've
been able to fulfill customer demand for always available access to key
customer information from the convenience of a handheld device,” said Roger
Goulart, vice president of global alliances at salesforce.com. “This
agreement helps round out our mobile solution portfolio and enables us to
meet the needs of our mobile customers very quickly with a proven solution.”
Michael Singer is a career coach, podcast host, and author to help you step into a career you're excited about. Currently, He is a coach and trainer helping entrepreneurs and executives achieve business and leadership success. He is also an award-winning business journalist focused on the intersection of technology, Big Data, Cloud, SaaS, SAP, and other trending technology.
