Salesforce fine-tunes 'per drink' pricing for developers
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Enhancements to Eclipse-based IDE are designed to bring traditional source code and testing tools to hosted Force.com platform.
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Pays $1bn for Web's favourite free database Sun Microsystems is to pay $1bn for open source database developer MySQL.â¦
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(InfoWorld) - Microsoft continues to prepare for the third-quarter launch of itsÂ Dynamics Live CRM serviceÂ with Tuesday's announcement of initial pricing and product information. Customers in North America will be able to begin using the service free under an early access program this year and Microsoft expects to start charging for the hosted CRM (customer relationship management) service in the first half of 2008, according to Brad Wilson, general manager for Microsoft Dynamics CRM. The software giant made the announcements at its Worldwide Partner Conference (WPC) in Denver. At the same conference a year ago in Boston, Microsoft CEOÂ Steve Ballmer confirmedÂ Dynamics Live CRM would be the vendor's third major Live hosted service, following on from its Windows Live and Office Live software-as-a-service (SAAS) offerings. Live CRM is one of three deployment options in Microsoft's upcoming "Titan" release of its CRM software. Titan will be the first Microsoft CRM release based on a multi-tenant architecture, using a single code base to support three types of usage -- Live CRM, an on-premise version of the CRM application and a partner-hosted release. All three deployment options share a common code base. The on-premise and partner-hosted versions of Titan should appear in the fourth quarter of this year, Wilson said. The company has yet to commit to a launch date for Dynamics Live CRM outside of the U.S. and Canada, but does intend to offer the service internationally, Wilson said. Microsoft's partners have already been hosting Dynamics CRM and Wilson stressed that the customer early access program for Live CRM will be partner-led meaning that would-be users have to go through partners to sign up for the service. Microsoft will also compensate partners annually for the customers they sign up for Live CRM. Each year, such partners will receive 10 percent of the annual SAAS subscription revenue per customer. For next year, Microsoft will offer an additional sweetener to partners increasing it to 15 percent. Microsoft plans to provide a number of different versions of Live CRM. Dynamics Live CRM Professional, aimed at companies with five or more CRM users, will be the first to become available, Wilson said. Professional is the service Microsoft will offer in its free early customer access program this year. In 2008, Professional will cost $39 per user per month in a promotional price, which will eventually be raised to $44 per user per month. The service will enable users to access CRM capabilities through Microsoft Outlook and browser clients and will include customizable workflow based on Windows Workflow Foundation. The other Live CRM release Microsoft intends to begin offering in the first half of next year is its Enterprise version, which adds in offline data synchronization on top of the Professional features. Dynamics Live CRM Enterprise will cost $59 per user per month. "The decision to allow early access to CRM Live for no fee is a pragmatic approach to attracting Microsoft-oriented prospects who have been looking for commodity sales-force automation functionality but have as of yet sat it out," Michael Maoz, vice president at market research company Gartner, wrote in an e-mail comment. "We don't expect Microsoft CRM Live will be generally available to customers until the first quarter of 2008 at the earliest, and then for North American clients only, with subsequent waves for EMEA AsiaPac." Microsoft's initial focus with CRM Live will be sales-force automation for business-to-business organizations, Maoz said, not customer service in the contact center, Web self-service or field service. Until Microsoft releases a full list of functionality for the service and how much customization of the product it will allow, customers will find it to hard to do "an apples-to-apples comparison" of Live CRM versus existing on-demand CRM from the likes of Salesforce.com and NetSuite, he added. Salesforce.com's Group Edition might be the likely rival to CRM Live and a sight cheaper than Microsoft's offering at $10 per user. "Salesforce.com is better focused from a sales and marketing perspective, selling directly and through its growing third-party partners, giving them a strong head start in the market that will be hard for Microsoft to compete with given its current go-to-market strategy, especially its dependence on partners to deliver a hosted solution in addition to the SAAS model -- the hosted offering has only a slight chance of succeeding over the next 18 months," Maoz wrote. REFERENCES:, Mar. 14, 2007Microsoft widens partner access to next CRM release, Jan. 10, 2007Microsoft to take Dynamics CRM Live in Q2 2007, Jul. 11, 2006
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Siebel SystemsÂ has quietly introduced a version of its CRM (customer relationship management) sales software tailored for midmarket companies.ADVERTISEMENTSBC Datacomm White PaperFind out how Crate & Barrel expects to save $180,000 by moving to VoIP, compared to a traditional PBX.
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Keeping its promise to migrate toward more flexible pricing for its software, Computer Associates (Quote, Chart) has unleashed Measured Workload Pricing for its mainframe management products.
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Businesses don&#39;t have to dump Windows to test drive free or low-price applications whose use may improve the bottom line. Sometimes the big software vendors act like their customers are locked into the proprietary products they sell.
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SAP is rolling out a hosted service it hopes will appeal to midsize customers that can rent the software for as little as $325 per user per month while avoiding the complexity of in-house installations.
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Social network will allow individual creators to put a price on their content.
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The latest craze in software: giving stuff away. BEA Systems, Computer Associates and IBM all recently started releasing the source code, or underlying instructions, for some programs, which amounts to distributing those products free. Even the loosest definition of incentive rebates would probably stop short of 100% discounts, but then the economics of software are peculiar (see story, p. 161). The giveaways were celebrated, especially by the noisy "open-source" movement, which wants all software distributed this way. (They're not kidding.)
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A Starbucks-style dollar menu? Say it isn't so.
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The Story: Look in the mirror, Mr. or Ms. IT buyer. You?ve got more muscle than ever ? and you did it without steroids.[ Slideshow: 2007's top underreported tech stories ]                                                    Despite the wave of consolidation sweeping the industry, buyers have actually gained more leverage than ever when it comes to making deals with their vendors, notes a PricewaterhouseCoopers analysis. ?Software buyers need to realize that the pendulum is beginning to swing in their favor and that there are an increasing number of alternatives in today?s software market,? concurs Gartner analyst William Snyder (no relation to this writer).There are a lot of reasons for the swing, but one certainly stands out: The shift to SaaS (software as a service). The poster child for this phenomenon is Salesforce.com. "Both its development and delivery models are having a disruptive effect on the entire CRM market,? notes Forrester Research analyst Bill Band. But it?s not just Salesforce: By 2011, Snyder says, fully 25 percent of all new business software will be delivered as a service as Salesforce and other vendors push upstream from the small-business market. Already, SaaS providers make up the majority of sales for several segments of human resources applications, and is well-established for supply-chain management.[ InfoClipzflash video primer: Software as a Service ]SaaS is just the first wave of services that are pushing pricing power over to buyers: The more recent move to Web services and the beginnings of SOA (service-oriented architecture) deployment are encouraging the use of modular software, which in turn cuts development costs, makes it harder for vendors to sell expensive suites, and lessens the need for expensive consulting services.And yet another factor is upping buyer?s power, notes Gartner?s Snyder: the emergence of third-party support options that are reducing software?s TCO (total cost of ownership). ?Maintenance services have been a quasi-monopoly for software vendors,? he said. ?For many years, only the software vendor had rights to the source code of the critical components of the system. This made it impossible to go to an open, competitive market to obtain upgrades, services and support, which in turn made it impossible to negotiate maintenance fees.?Interestingly another software trend ? the growth of virtualization ? is beginning to affect pricing for hardware, particularly servers. A report by Infiniti Research suggests that server shipments will start declining in 2008: ?The server market of tomorrow will be a value game and not a volume game.? And that means better pricing for hardware, too.Don?t let your head swell too much, but Gartner vice president Mark McDonald credits ?savvy CIOs? for containing costs that were once out of control. ?They?re saying, ?I want you to implement in a way that gives me the advantage over my competition? ? and they?re not accepting the traditional vendor model, which favors homogeneity and the economics of scale.?The Bottom Line: Chances are that you?re looking at SaaS, Web services, SOA, virtualization, open source, and other technology-delivery methods for a variety of specific reasons, without realizing the cumulative effect is to give you more pricing power. Now that you?ve got the power, use it.Complete list of 2007 underreported tech stories: 1.? Java is becoming the new Cobol 2.? Sun Microsystems is back in the game 3.? Hackers take aim at Mac OS X 4.? There are some threats you can worry less about 5.? Companies may have found a way around H-1B visa limits 6.? Open source?s new commercial strategy 7.? End-to-end Ethernet finally arrives 8.? Blade servers arrive for the masses 9.? BI is dead; long live BI 10. Balance of power shifts to software buyers
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(InfoWorld) - SAP has christened itsÂ suite of hosted ERP softwareÂ for the midmarket SAP Business ByDesign and said it will be available initially in the U.S. and Germany, with the U.K., France and China to follow soon after. Pricing for the service in the U.S. starts at $149 per user per month for a minimum of 25 users, including services and support, SAP said. Customers also pay $54 per month for each group of five "efficiency users," or casual users who access the software only to fill out expense reports and purchase confirmations, for example. SAP CEO Henning Kagermann presented the first demonstration of the product, formerly known by its code name A1S, at an event in New York Wednesday morning, calling it "the most important announcement I have made in my career." SAP has said it will invest â¬300 million to â¬400 million (about $400 million to $550 million) by the end of 2008 to support the introduction of the service, including a consumer marketing campaign on the Web to alter the perception of SAP as a provider of software for big businesses. SAP Business ByDesign aims to offer the gamut of ERP (enterprise resource planning) capabilities in a service affordable and simple enough for use by businesses with 100 employees to 500 employees, Kagermann said. The capabilities include manufacturing, purchasing, accounting, sales and marketing and human resources. The software is live today at 20 customers in Germany and the U.S., including a small aircraft manufacturer, a manufacturer of air fresheners, a technology consulting company and a company that offers packaging and distribution services to pharmaceutical companies. It still wasn't entirely clear from SAP's statement when the average business will be able to sign up for the service, but a safe bet for most countries appears to be 2008. SAP is "currently engaging with pilot customers" in the U.S. and Germany and "validating" the product with customers in the U.K., France and China, it said in a statement. Next year it will offer the service in additional markets including Australia and India in the Asia-Pacific; Italy, the Netherlands, the Nordic region and Spain in Europe; Canada and Mexico in the Americas; and South Africa. Other countries will follow in 2009. The company has said it hopes to open a new market for ERP among companies that rely today on spreadsheets and other individual programs to run their businesses, and were put off ERP in the past by its price and complexity. Analysts say the challenge will be to offer a product that's easy for companies to configure but which meets the needs of their individual business.
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Corporate licences make for happy software vendors
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Java lovers, hold onto your nickels and dimes. Months after retail coffee-shop chains such as Starbucks raised the cost of their caffeine concoctions, the price of coffee is still on the rise.
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Customers will pay a per-rack fee for server space, monitoring and related services.
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Aggregator says it expects flat-rate pricing to simplify budgeting for enterprises and to increase usage of hotspots. By Mobile Pipeline News.
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Standard version of the software, now slated for January, will sell for $399, while a Home and Student version will cost $149.