More data, accurate results, new offering from LucidEra
June 26, 2008
LucidEra is one of those Salesforce-participating companies out in the cloud that does something that I just irrationally enjoy, analytics.
What LucidEra has announced in it’s latest news release (that I somehow missed from yesterday!) is another offering from this company that’s closing the gap between marketing and sales. LucidEra Lead Insight provides an amazing depth of information on lead conversion, decay, salesperson performance and a whole plethora of other useful tidbits. This product may become one of those critical things in your company that you can use to show exactly how your sales force is doing day in day out, and track their success.
Considering my habits, I could expect to lose quite a few days plumbing the depths of Lead Insight gathering all sorts of strange correlations and curious trends…
“Hey CEO, when Todd in Sales comes in late on Tuesdays he always closes an account, how about we slash his tires Monday night before the big Templeton account meeting?”
The new product is called LucidEra Lead Insight, and you can check out the release here or the product here or maybe skip all that and go straight to the demo here.
Reverend Ted, sing it again…
June 26, 2008
Reverend Ted, who posts over at his Open Source Advocacy blog has a few interesting things to say about Saas, and more imporantly, Salesforce’s position in that new market… most importantly how it appears to him and I agree, that Salesforce (more specifically the Force.com platform) is moving to position itself as the SaaS Microsoft.
Any new company entering the field of Saas will have to outmaneover them to get the edge.
Hmmm…
Have a read and tell me what you think!
Sales Analytics: Forecasting Success Through Improved Data Visibility
June 25, 2008
A few weeks ago I posted a link to a Sales Analytics Survey by Aberdeen Research. Today the analyst, Peter Ostrow, was kind enough to send me an overview of some of his findings.
The conclusion:
“Sales analytics and forecasting tools, with their premise of both understanding the various data sets and predictive elements that color a sales forecast, hold the potential not only to close the knowledge gap between Best-in-Class and other companies regarding pipeline data, but to “raise the tide” of all organizations by providing more insightful, trustworthy forecasts that are accessed by all executive stakeholders within the enterprise. “
You can read the survey overview report here.
The Cloud: “Ecosystem” a good word?
June 23, 2008
I know it’s a few days old at this point but two guys over at InformationWeek have done what I believe is an awesome job with a nine page editorial about eight industry leaders in Cloud Computing.
Skip straight to page four for the Salesforce recap but read through the whole thing for a nice meaty vision of the developing ecosystem of the Cloud. It’s really a good word for it, don’t you think? Everything in the Cloud interacts with (in theory), feeds off of, benefits from, and alters the space in which everything else exists, ecosystem is the best word I have right now for an environment like that.
Next on my list of things to do is find someone to talk in-depth about Salesforce “evangelism” because I’m finding it pretty prevalent and I want to know why…
Anything you can do, I can do better: More on MS Dynamics
June 20, 2008
Well, it looks like people can’t refer to Microsoft’s CRM offering without referring to Salesforce on their blogs and in their news. I’m pretty much inundated by page after page of in depth comparisons, prognosticating, and other willy-nillying about the do’s and don’ts and ups and downs of how Microsoft stacks up to Salesforce.
Destination.net has my favourite post-made-up-of-more-than-just-copy-pasted-press-release-and-one-paragraph-of-commentary here. I feel it has a bit of a Microsoft bias, but seeing as I was once berated for expressing my love of the Mac by a self-confessed Microsoft “fanboi” in mismatched socks and a pocket protector I can safely say a bit of MS-bias isn’t going to worry me.
(Don’t get mad! I wrote this post in Windows XP.)
I find your lack of faith disturbing: Microsoft Dynamics
June 19, 2008
Sorry about the heading, I just couldn’t think of a more evil quote off the top of my head.
So bad news for Salesforce.com today (hah!) as Microsoft has announced the general availability of it’s Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online as it moves out of it’s early adopter phase.
The mortal and terrifying advantage Microsoft has over Salesforce? it’s about $20 cheaper and offers a bunch of features Salesforce doesn’t. Well, most of them are the same but in greater quantities or come in the form of things that Salesforce could enable with a lightswitch.
Now I must ask you also to consider this; with Microsoft’s CRM you will save 21$ but, well… Windows Vista.
The post that cropped up for me is here.
Fun facts: Browser Trends and SFdc
June 18, 2008
Firefox 3 was released today, and I do hope those of you who chose to indulge did indulge, because it is smokin’ awesome.
I suppose to “celebrate” this, Jerry Sherman from the User Experience blog at Salesforce.com chose to take another look at Browser support for Salesforce. Why? Well with Firefox’s share of the browsing growing about 587% in the last year to control 14.1% of the total share, the question he raises is whether or not IE 6 is still up to the task. Jerry goes on to say that within the next year apps will start being released that will no longer be compatible with IE 6 as new UI enhancements will drag it too far into the future for that clunky old browser.
Out to pasture, old Maybelle. Here’s the official post.
Salesforce Summer ‘08, is here!
June 17, 2008
Let the guitar riffs wail and the drum solos explode accompanied by the sounds of the New York philharmonic as a combination of classic and new fuse into one beautiful amoeba of awesome. Yeah, can you tell I’ve been saving that line all day for this?
It’s 26th release in just 9 years, Salesforce Summer ‘08 unleashes the maelstrom (okay, I’ll calm down) of over 50 new apps to the app exchange, most of which build on this year’s theme of collaboration. Go to the app exchange immediately to learn more because there’s more there than I could possibly explain.
… and if you’re interested the official press release is here.
Can’t resist presentation slides, More PaaS predictions
June 16, 2008
Of all the Salesforce news and blog updates over the weekend, I have to say that aside from an amusing comment on Salesforce’s future as stock, “madgreek56″ over at the Enterprise Initiatives blog has put together a nice summary of the different software solutions available to you, me, and them as well as putting together the hurdles the 2.0 industry is facing.
While I know most of those of you who read this may be a bit further along the curve than this material is aimed at, it’s always nice to be armed with a few more “simple explanations” for when it comes time to justify the next sale (You could almost post this to your mum!).
It’s unfortunate you have to justify sales at all, these people should know what’s good for them, eh?
madgreek does a bit of prognosticating as well and offers a video blog that’s a bit more technical. Read his piece here.
Adobe AIR and six new business apps
June 13, 2008
I tried to get something more interesting in this post however I have found myself to be incapable of competing with the interesting stuff on the other side of this link. The recent integration of Adobe AIR and Salesforce apps is still at the forefront of my curiosity, AIR providing Salesforce with some much needed aesthetic zing and another level of control for developers to turn apps into exactly what they’re looking for. Literally. I mean if you really wanted a sandwich you could use Adobe AIR to make a sandwich UI for your latest CRM app.
Sarah Perez, could you try to be a little less interesting?
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