Dan Farber is a commentator on IT for ZDNet who usually makes me perk up my ears when I read what he has to say about the industry. And THAT comes from a relatively jaded but cheery perspective on most industry commentators. I like his stuff. So today, when I saw that he was commenting on the new release or the pre-release of the new release of salesforce.com - up went my lobes. As Farber calls it, it is a "relentless drumbeat" of features and new "things" that Marc B. and his rather innovative bunch drive into the public domain on a fairly consistent basis.
One of them, which I'm glad to see, is Ajax enablement of their user interface and the easily customizable desktop they're offering. But NetSuite did that a few months ago and did it so well, its gonna be hard to top them there.
I even love the idea that they're integrating with Lotus Notes - especially since IBM has big plans for Notes as a social networking and collaboration platform. If done right, though that's always up for grabs when it comes to Lotus Notes - trust me - that can be exceptionally powerful. But it can easily be done wrong. I know. I built Lotus Notes businesses and saw them go right - and wrong - over the years. So salesforce's integration with it is a loaded gun that can either shoot really straight and true or blow up when the hammer is released. Still a good thing, though and I'm glad that salesforce.com is showing the chutzpah to make the integration work.
But that's not the best thing they're doing. They're actually continuing to push the model by creating what they're calling IdeaExchange - which salesforce.com says:
On this site, you can comment on new features, vote on your favorite enhancements, and interact with salesforce.com product managers who participate in the discussion forums. In our ongoing efforts to continually create a dialog with our community, we are hoping that this site provides an open and direct channel of communication for customers.
I think this is a really good thing and continues to expand the model that AppExchange created. This isn't open source. Its open customer involvement. One of the features of this site is the ability to vote on whether or not you like the entry - in the case of IdeaExchange - the blog entry is a feature description with a picture. The host of the site, CrispyNews, sees itself as a user chosen news community much along the line of Digg or Slashdot though a bit less "busy" than they are and more of a set of communities than a site for user chosen and tagged news items - so I guess they aren't exactly like Digg or Slashdot then are they? So shut UP, Paul.
In any case, I have to applaud them for this "feature." They are actually evolving the model in the high tech community the way it should be evolved and making it known, too. I might hear a complaint or two from other vendors that they do this too - their customers/users are involved, but know what? They don't make it known to ANYONE or they do in reaction to what they read on blogs like this, so shame on them for being usurped. Hey vendor, if you do already do this, let me know and I'll be sure to let others know. I know that SugarCRM has an active development community that is co-participant with them in the development of the product but that isn't this. This is the user's being involved in the assessment of the content so to speak.
But note, I said assessment, not creation. That does raise a question or two. You can comment on features, vote on your favorite enhancements and interact with the product managers who are overseeing the creation of these features and enhancements. But what if the users say, "MAN, that enhancement really BITES!" ?? (let us not go there, people). What will salesforce.com do then? Eliminate the enhancement? Even though they just spent all this time and money developing it. For example, though it would be the will of the masses gone stupid if they do, what if the users say, we don't WANT AJAX in our user interfaces, thankyouverymuch." What will salesforce.com do then?
All in all, this is a really welcome move. Salesforce.com has gone well beyond the marketing hype that they in the past couldn't live up to and now they are innovators and leaders who are truly "living the dream" the way its supposed to be lived.
That Said...
I still wish three that salesforce.com would do three things about its marketing "terminologies."
- PLEASE give me the go ahead to capitalize the "s" in "salesforce.com" even when it doesn't start a sentence.
- I BEG YOU, get rid of whateverfillstheblankforce as the ID for whatever it is you think you're IDing in your platforms and conferences.
- I IMPLORE YOU to not let the WhateverfillstheblankExchange go any further than AppExchange and IdeaExchange. We all get the social interaction point.
One Other Unrelated Matter
As if to underscore my point of a couple of weeks ago, Onyx, the copy I now, sadly, love to hate, after my diatribe, laid off 250 people in a reduction in force (RIF) move that, of course, simply proves what an abomination that M2M and its owners are. People are chess pieces for the purposes of driving "shareholder value." Pretty damned disgusting for a CRM company. Please put Onyx on your ignore except when there are miserable things to say list. I like their product but if the "when you buy the application, you buy the vendor" truism is a truism, then their product has just taken a significant downturn because they are owned by a miserable bunch.
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