Ya know, there are times that I wonder what the actual strategies that companies in the CRM "space" such as it is are thinking about? I look at them and I scratch my head, given the pronouncements I read pretty much daily. Today my headscratcher is the "salesforce.com Unlimited" program.
So What Does It DO Again, Exactly?
As many of you reading this know, I've gone from a long ago salesforce.com skeptic to a strong salesforce.com "positive thinker" and a genuine admirer of their innovative thinking - thinking that has kept the customer marketplace fresh. In the third edition of CRM at the Speed of Light, a year before they announced it, I indicated that SFDC was going to try to move from CRM ASP to a platform provider. I KNEW what they were doing thanks to a candid refreshing talk to their brilliantly talented long time senior management dude, Tien Tzuo. (Yankees fan too). I also thought that despite the critics of AppExchange that it was a really bright and important idea that was designed to provide exactly the platform that they had planned for so long.Though I'm still not sure that they'll be the winner in the platform fight (I think that SAP or Rearden Commerce or a couple of others have a good shot too) AppExchange pretty well guaranteed them that they will be significant players in the realm in any case. I think that AppExchange follows a smart path opening the development platform to the (gasp!) developers from other companies who are then given an open marketplace - an SFDC Maxwell St Market (those of you from Chicago will know what I'm talkin' about). But adding some monthly service fees and calling this "Unlimited Edition" closer to the fulfillment of Business Web 2.0 seems to be making a lot more of this announcement than it should be. The reality is that there are 188 AppExchange programs/services developed by SFDC related companies and bully for them and for salesforce. But I wouldn't make this new "edition" much than a new edition with a higher price and more of some things - even the Enterprise Edition offers 10 AppExchange apps.
Does it get SFDC much in the end? That's why I'm scratching my head. It seems to be a REALLY BIG SFDC Enterprise Edition with MORE access to AppExchange. Good idea. Not a great one. Nor does it move them up the chain of platform dominance any more than they were already.
Prescriptive Post-script
Based on the above, I had a delightful discussion with John Taschek, the VP of Product Marketing at salesforce.com on the above. For those of you who don't know his prior life, he was the best columnist/writer the high tech world had and I miss the fact that he doesn't write any more but the lure of salesforce.com can do this and he is a true good person so I actually listened to what he said to me based on the thinking you read before you got the the subhead of this section. So here's some more, with his commentary rattling around in my cranium as I tried to understand this new release better
As far as all of this goes. I still think that AppExchange isn't the issue that I was trying to figure out. I figured out AppExchange awhile ago and I really like it and the idea of the "community" that it can breed. I found out that the unlimited edition is packaging (I appreciated John's candor here) and it seems to be a good package for the price. I still think that is not a realization of Business Web 2.0. John mentioned that it simplifies things for a lot of the customers so that they have unlimited access to the multiple apps and services sort of at will (though that is me saying that, not John) and I see that as good. So the Salesforce Unlimited Edition basically the Enterprise Edition Supersized with AppExchange built in and it has some real value as a package for a reasonable price for sure. Hard to complain about $195.00 per user.
The Platform Wars Continue: Luke & Darth or Obi Wan? Still Don't Know
I still don't think that the platform battle has been advanced any more in salesforce's favor than it was prior to the release of the Unlimited Edition as I said above. As far as SAP goes in this battle, for them to succeed as a true platform, they will need a cultural change and that will be tough but they have the muscle and money part down.. I think that salesforce.com is better culturally situated than SAP to be a platform but SAP has the $$$ and the muscle that salesforce doesn't. Standoff for now, even though SAP's problem with culture is dramatic and going to be tougher to solve than salesforce gaining its six pack abs. I think the sleeper here is going to be. Rearden Commerce, whose service oriented architecture-based platform has the completeness that no one else seems to have, What they don't have is the development community or sexiness or presence of salesforce, nor the dollars or mus-kels of SAP, but they are considerably more nimble than SAP and more complete than salesforce.com.
But then again, we can't ignore Microsoft, IBM or Google either now can we?
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