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A virgence in the Force. SFDC morphs into Force.com

November 25, 2008

I received a copy of a press release yesterday talking about how Harrahs Entertainment (known for its casino empire that includes Caesars in Vegas) is anteing up and using the Force.com platform to more efficiently run and integrate a variety of its businesses.

While it was interesting to hear that Salesforce is making in roads into another well known, well established company, it wasn’t exactly eye popping news – we expect to hear this type of thing every week at this stage of the game.

However, what did catch my eye was the wording of the release. While I don’t like to include too much if any press release material on in my posts, I’ve included the snippet below for reference as there are some interesting takeaways.

Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc. has used the Force.com Platform to build applications designed specifically for managing room reservations, air travel programs and player relations.    

Points to Ponder:

  • 1. It’s becoming more and more obvious that Salesforce.com is morphing into Force.com. As noted in the comments to this post, Salesforce is shifting its focus from being a CRM company to being known as a platform company.CRM, while still SFDC’s primary business and likely the main driver behind its ongoing growth, is taking a back seat to Force.com and the idea of cloud computing(click the link and note the branding / copy of the header).
  • 2. Salesforce.com may be suffering or may suffer soon from a lack of brand focus during this transition. Personally I’m a big fan of SFDC (that much is obvious) and I hope the company continues to flourish rather than making the mistake so many other big brands have made in the past. Currently, I think the company is running the risk of breaking one of the 22 imutable laws of branding, that is: trying to be all things to all people. If you look at the current www.salesforce.com home page, you’ll see what I mean. The title you’ll see in your browser says: “CRM – The leader in Software-as-a-service SaaS”. The next thing you might notice is that the AppExchange is now know as the Force.com Appexchange (if you click through you’ll see a tagline urging us to: “Expand beyond CRM”). Further down the page we see the line “The Leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) & Cloud Computing“. And the list of other small and not so small details goes on.

It’s interesting watching this shift and my bet is that Salesforce.com will be able to pull it off.

The new direction is a good one in the sense that if the transition is completed successfully and with the right timing, Salesforce will have effectively opened itself up to a bigger market – this could also be a double edge sword as the company no doubt knows. By trying to be all things to all people, you often end up pleasing no one. My bet is Salesforce will be able to make the transition work. It has strong leadership that understands technology and has proven its foresight in the past.

That’s enough from me for now on this one. Post your thoughts and responses to comments.

Written by admin · Filed Under Salesforce.com News 

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