Salesforce.com uses Force to disappear
479362
Not the interface you're looking for Salesforce.com's incredible disappearing act will continue next week the announcement of its latest platform and tools initiative to target developers.â¦
158970
Can you handle Dylan and the Devsters? The barrel-scraping netherworld of corporate anthems is agog at Salesforce.com's groundbreaking new hip-hop opus, "Dev Life".â¦
252656
(InfoWorld) - The North American sales arm of Singapore Airlines Ltd. is halfway through a project to use on-demand software from Salesforce.com Inc. to improve collaboration between its home-based corporate travel staff. Following the lead of some of its peers in the industry, Singapore Airlines is requiring corporate business travel sales staff to work out of their homes to pare down infrastructure costs. The sales staff is spread out in cities including Boston, Chicago, Denver, Houston, Philadelphia and San Diego. The issue the airline and other companies are grappling with is how best to foster collaboration between such geographically scattered staff while also increasing efficiency and driving more sales. Prior to initial deployment of Salesforce.com's hosted sales automation and marketing software in April, the sales staff relied on e-mail and offline meetings as its main method for communication and collaboration, according to Michael Stellwag, manager of direct sales and marketing for the Americas at Singapore Airlines. About 18 months ago, the airline decided a sales force automation tool could help bring its home-based sales staff into closer collaboration with each other. Singapore Airlines took an in-depth look at products from three vendors over the course of six months -- Sage Software Inc.'s Act contact management software, enterprise applications vendor Saratoga Systems' CRM (customer relationship management) product, and Salesforce.com's hosted sales force automation and marketing offerings. The airline particularly liked Salesforce.com's on-demand approach since the application could run without support from Singapore Airlines' IT staff. The airline closed a deal to use Salesforce software as the software vendor's fiscal year ended on Jan. 31, 2006. From late 2005 through early 2006, Salesforce.com experienced a series of much publicized service outages. "We didn't place too much emphasis [on the failures]," Stellwag said. "Companies like Salesforce.com live and die by availability and we were confident the problem would be fixed. It didn't seem like anything more than a blip on the radar screen." Once the application was up and running, Stellwag began to check out Salesforce.com's AppExchange Web site where the vendor showcases both its own on-demand add-ons and applications developed by third parties to be used with the Salesforce software. "I looked at the broad array of applications and got hooked," he said. Of particular interest have been applications that address the specific needs of the airline industry, according to Stellwag. So far, Singapore Airlines is using 14 AppExchange applications including user adoption dashboards that measure how frequently the sales staff use the software. He also highlighted an application that integrates the Hoover's company database, an important source of sales leads for the airline's staff, with the Salesforce software. Looking ahead, Singapore Airlines wants to find ways to help sales team members be more efficient in how they set up trips to meet customers by doing mash-ups between Salesforce and mapping software from Mapquest Inc. and Google Inc. So far, about a dozen home-based salespeople are using the Salesforce software, with several more individuals to go live shortly. "Longer term, the number of home-based sales team members could jump considerably," Stellwag said. The sales staff particularly like the hosted software's offline module which enables them to access the basic functionality of Salesforce without needing an Internet connection. "People are communicating more than ever before," Stellwag said. "Everyone can see everyone else's details to facilitate greater cooperation and communication and for everyone to see how everyone else is doing." That ability to view colleague's sales progress acts as a self motivator for staff to ensure their efforts are at the level they should be, he added. Sharing calendars and task lists is proving extremely helpful in enabling the airline to put together an account team focused on a particular company, despite the sales team being based in different locations. Soon, the airline will roll out IBM Corp.'s Lotus Notes groupware to its sales operation in the U.S. and Canada, which had previously been using Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook Express. Stellwag is looking forward to the integration of Notes with Salesforce to enable further collaboration. "Salesforce has been successful at increasing productivity and has had a significant impact on our sales success," Stellwag said. "This is an experiment being watched very closely by executives in our worldwide headquarters in Singapore." When the project ends in about a year's time, if it has continued to meet a number of preset key performance indicators, the door could be open for a wider deployment of the hosted software. Â
105949
BusinessWeek Online - Salesforce.com  has the growth story down pat, but keeping up the pace can get tricky as competitors toughen your game. Investors sold Salesforce stock on Feb. 22 - even after news that the on-demand software services company won a whopping 90,000 net new subscribers during the three months ended Jan. 31.
355931
New Salesforce.com hosted CRM lets users access Apex Code to make writing custom apps easier, adds workflow management.
287505
NOVEMBER 03, 2004  - On-demand CRM software provider Salesforce.com Inc. is branching out to offer hosted application development technology and online marketplace services to supplement its own software services.
293971
Salesforce.com Inc. and Google Inc. announced a strategic global partnership Tuesday, but it wasn't theÂ widely expected tight integrationÂ between Google Apps and Salesforce.com's hosted CRM (customer relationship management) software. Instead, the two vendors brought out their first jointly developed and co-marketed product combining Google AdWords with Salesforce on-demand CRM.ADVERTISEMENTIBM Information On Demand 2006Industrial Industry Leaders, please join us at IBM's premier information management global event, IBM Information On Demand 2006, October 15-20, Anaheim, CA. More IBM business and technical solutions content in one place than ever before! Select from  over 800 sessions. Register today!
324158
CEO Benioff &amp; Co. are more of a &quot;disruptive force&quot; in the software industry than ever before. By Tony Kontzer. Salesforce.
224594
(InfoWorld) - Salesforce.com Inc. and Google Inc. announced a strategic global partnership Tuesday, but it wasn't theÂ widely expected tight integrationÂ between Google Apps and Salesforce.com's hosted CRM (customer relationship management) software. Instead, the two vendors brought out their first jointly developed and co-marketed product combining Google AdWords with Salesforce on-demand CRM. [ See Reality Check blog post:Â  Google, Salesforce miss the mark. ] Speculation reached fever pitch in recent weeks that Salesforce.com and Google would integrate their respective hosted applications to counter Microsoft Corp.'s move into on-demand software with its Live applications, which will include a hosted version of its Dynamics CRM offering. There were even suggestions that Google was ready to acquire Salesforce.com. The two companies have a lot in common in terms of their company culture, their technologies and their belief that pay-as-you-go Internet applications will become increasingly popular. "There's a natural fit," said Kendall Collins, senior vice president of marketing at Salesforce.com, of the relationship with Google. The two vendors have been looking at where their businesses intersect and where they could both derive substantial business. They decided to work together on a new offering to target small to midsize businesses (SMBs) and integrate AdWords with Salesforce CRM. AdWords allows companies to advertise their products to people using Google's search engine and to associate their ads with specific keyword searches so the ads may appear next to particular search results. Using the new product, which is called Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords, a company can immediately connect to AdWords and create an ad linked to particular search results. Customers clicking on that ad are taken to the company's Web site and encouraged to complete a form with their contact details, which then automatically becomes a new lead in Salesforce CRM. Those leads can then be shared around the company and managed through Salesforce CRM. Users will also be able to link existing AdWords accounts to Salesforce CRM and to create new AdWords accounts, Collins said. Potential customers can try out and then purchase the new product from aÂ special micrositeÂ on the CRM vendor's Web site. The new product will immediately replace Salesforce.com's Team Edition offering, Collins said. It will be available in 14 languages and in the 43 countries where Salesforce.com operates. Under a promotional deal, the new offering will initially cost $600 for a five-user edition per year, as compared with $995 for the five-user Team Edition. The list price will end up as $1,200 per year. For users in Canada, Mexico and the U.S. who are new to AdWords, Salesforce Group Edition featuring Google AdWords also comes with a $50 AdWords credit. Under the terms of the nonexclusive agreement, Salesforce.com will take 100 percent of the $600 annual subscription fee, while Google will garner the lion's share of the advertising revenue generated, with the CRM vendor receiving a small undisclosed portion of those ad sales. Google's hope is that teaming up with Salesforce.com will enable the company to reach new SMB customers. Salesforce.com's goal is to ensure that all of its CRM offerings have some component of AdWords, Collins said. It's likely that this is the start of an intensification of the Google, Salesforce.com relationship, with perhaps the tight integration of Google Apps and Salesforce CRM to come. "Where will we go next?" Collins asked. "Stay tuned." Â
40636
Ponders withdrawing support for non-stickered product
452325
Whoo oo oo ooo... Can you feel the force? Dreamforce Chief executive Marc Benioff today kicked-off Salesforce.com's fifth, annual Dreamforce conference at the Moscone Center in San Francisco by citing customer numbers, growing developer and partner channels, and increased revenues as proof that Salesforce.com will force its way onto the software industry's table.â¦
403071
Here's a screen shot of the HTML source.  Looks like it's trying to serve some kind of ActiveX control. Happy to be using a Mac.  PS: Scoble just showed up and TM works on his cell phone so there's something weird going on.
740257
Stop reading all that 'clickwrap' fine print! A browser bot will accept or reject agreements on your terms. By Mark D. Rasch from Wired magazine.
160507
Salesforce.com repackages Apex code as developer 'platform' Software as a Service (SaaS) isn't dead, but it could soon be overtaken by Platform as a Service (PaaS), according to SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com.â¦
140332
Tenants up the wazoo Dreamforce Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com's chief executive, today poured scorn on SAP for its temerity in planning on-demand business applications. At no time did he mention the company by name, but everyone recognised his target when he referred to software firms using dated architectures and hoodwinking customers.â¦
388801
Google's new commitment to on-demand apps should terrify Salesforce.com.
292605
Why is it that my Windows computer sometimes will not let me unplug my U.S.B. flash drive?