Salesforce.com on the S&P 500
September 11, 2008
Milestone. In business there are many milestones, being included on a major index is definitely one in the group of achievements that might be headlined “We have arrived.”Just a quick update on this because it is simply huge and there are dozens of stories from financial, CRM, SaaS, and varying blogs on the topic. Try; CRM Buyer, the AP Newswire spot that is being republished everywhere, InformationWeek, etc.
Force.com checkout: ordering SFDC licenses online is here!
September 9, 2008
Those of you who are SF admins likely received an email this morning as I did announcing the new Force.com Checkout program coming to an SF license near you on Sept 22.
I’ve always wondered why ordering licenses and paying for AppExchange apps online wasn’t a possibility years go and now it looks like I can stop wondering and instead focus on how much easier this is going to make ordering licenses and other products from Salesforce.com.
From the official announcement:
“What is the change? We are replacing the Order Center previously embedded within your Salesforce application with the new Force.com Checkout site. This website will allow you to easily and securely buy new products from salesforce.com and buy additional licenses of salesforce.com products you already own, all with the efficiency of an online transaction. In the future, Force.com Checkout will also permit you to purchase new products and services from a variety of Force.com AppExchange partner vendors.
When is this change taking effect?
You can access Force.com Checkout beginning September 22nd, 2008.
How will this change impact you?
On September 22nd, 2008, we will replace the Order Center currently visible in your organization with Force.com Checkout. Salesforce system administrators and users who have billing permissions will be redirected to Force.com Checkout when attempting to access the Order Center. This will allow you to access Force.com Checkout and conduct business transactions online with salesforce.com.
Note: Billing contacts who are not users of Salesforce will not be able to access Force.com Checkout and will continue to receive invoices from salesforce.com as they have in the past.”
There you have it. Follow this link to learn more about Force.com Checkout.
Bluewolf: Barking at the Moon
September 9, 2008
I know I was down on the Salesforce Certification initially and I caused nigh-irreparable damage to the super-masculine cleft at the cusp of my jutting Romanesque jaw as I thought about it, and eventually I came around after some gentle prodding from the community, my peers, SF, and… well… everyone…
And led in aptly by that, but followed by as brutal segue: Bluewolf, the makers of such awesome slogans as “Success. Guaranteed.”, and purveyors of quality training (loved by all!) have just opened four more Salesforce Certified training centers; three on the tech heavy west coast and one in stunning Las Vegas!
Fortunately for Salesforce professionals, you do get to take the certification home with you… so what happens in Vegas won’t… stay in Vegas?
Okay it was a groaner, read the official news release and please come back to Salesforce Times tomorrow.
Weekend Update: Appirio ascendant
September 8, 2008
Jane you… errr…
A few months ago I nabbed a story about a company running solely on cloud systems and Salesforce.com. Here we have another darling of SaaS rising into the clouds. After recieving some nice bank from Sequoia Capital at the end of July, things seem to going very well indeed for Appirio. Strange though, Appirio gets all this money and then goes to lower cost cloud infrastructure? Hmm. They must employ a wise dutchman: “the art is not in making money, but in keeping it.”
Smart cookies. Here’s the link to the InfoWorld article.
Commentary on commentary: Google Chrome
September 4, 2008
So somebody (Mary Hayes Weier) with a bit more journalistic gusto over at InformationWeek picked up on the same question I did a few days ago: will Google’s new web browser Chrome help or hinder the burgeoning SaaS world? My opinion was help, Mary is not so optimistic and she goes into some good detail on the subject.
I’ve basically dropped Firefox like a bag of hammers for Chrome but living with Chrome’s eccentricities is starting to wear on me, still, I have never used a faster browser with a better ability to recover from the many issues it suffers from. (Example: It took me five tries in Chrome to get this post to come out of WordPress properly. It took me five times longer than one failure in Chrome to do it right once in Firefox.)
Maybe it’s time for vendors to just stop supporting one of the crappier browsers, like…
Anyway, check out Mary’s article here at information week and if you’ve had a chance to use Chrome with Salesforce please let me know how it’s working out for you!
Triple chocolate Force.com
September 3, 2008
I had to fight not to throw a ton of ice-cream and sugar-based puns into this. The Haagen-Dazs Shoppe Company is a small business that utilized a proto-force.com to engineer the Salesforce.com platform-as-a-service technology to suit their specific needs, allowing them to better organize their burgeoning chain of shops. It’s good to see Force.com getting more of a workout! Read more here and check out the official news here.
Google announces Chrome
September 2, 2008
While not strictly in the vein of Salesforce and SaaS, I think Google’s comic-book announcement about Google Chrome, their new browser offering, is sort of big news for everyone in the No Software world.
Admittedly, there is one piece of software that almost all (not counting mobile, etc.) SaaS needs: a browser.
If Google can bring to the public and enterprise worlds a browser with multiple processes instead of just tabs, extensive pre-beta and live testing via Google’s massive infrastructure for browsing webpages, an in-built “browser task manager”, and a bunch of other fun sounding perks, well… how fast can we all switch from IE to that? Are SaaS companies and Salesforce.com partners going to adapt fast enough to get all of their apps to run in Chrome?
In my experience with SaaS products, IE is king, all of the developers rush to get their new product running on IE first, and then maybe a few months later they’ll test it in Firefox, if I’m lucky. If Larry Dignan at ZDnet is right then this could be the materialization of a beautiful partnership between Google and Firefox to bring down Internet Explorer. Interesting times.
Labour day Salesforce update
September 1, 2008
Phew, after nearly a week of time off for me I thankfully haven’t missed much. Well, I say that hoping that everyone reading this knows fully that I am not Steve McWhirter, to whom huge things occurred this week. Many months ago Salesforce.com flickered a glimmer of it’s glorious No Software light into the bleak Asian software landscape and now with a champion at the leading edge of it’s torrent of evangelist-consultants, there is nothing left to stop them!
Alright, got a bit carried away there. So far the best stuff I’ve dug up for this Labour day monday consists of;
- Lawson Software’s CEO picking a fight on the internet.
- A blogger compares Salesforce skills to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Great post, I guess this is developer humour?
- Salesforce to meet with Citigroup again at their tech conference. Remember what happened last time Salesforce met with Citi?
More as it develops this week!
Dell wields Force.com
August 25, 2008
So a quick update here. Out of the big finance announcements last week came news that Dell has sign a 3-year deal to build it’s business apps in Force.com. Dell already uses Salesforce.com for all it’s CRM needs and now they’re taking the time to invest in Salesforces’ gifted-if-maturing Force.com cousin.
Check out the story at ZDnet and CIO.com.
Thursday’s news was too depressing
August 22, 2008
Okay, I think we’ve all heard more than enough about the Salesforce (CRM) stock slipping on Wednesday when their earnings report was great, but not spectacular, and earnings being diluted by the acquisition of “awesome guys” InStranet.
It’s been an ugly slog through blog after blog of doomsayers and crybabies sensationalizing a price-slip. Well to them, I say I am a big picture person, and if I had bought CRM stock a year ago I’d still be up 41%. I’m also not a financial analyst, so what do I know?
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