2011 Say Bye-bye!

Every year around this time I write two columns one on the year that was and another on what I expect the new year to bring.  There is no methodology for this process and I believe this lack of method is important.  I take a blank screen and fill it up with what has been [...]

Dreamforce as a Developers’ Paradise

Ok, so maybe it wasn’t paradise but then again with all the new tools Salesforce is rolling out for multiple kinds of computing whose primary overlap is the significance of the Internet is their use, this was kind of a Bonanza — Little Joe! Get my compiler!  (Sometimes I crack myself up.)  At any rate, [...]

Our Work is Done Here, Right?

The recently concluded Dreamforce conference in San Francisco might have been the most successful CRM conference ever.  That’s not hyperbole.  I have been at some major events in the last ten years that rival this year’s Dreamforce.  For instance, whenever Siebel had a user conference that was also major.  But a lot has happened since [...]

Some Economic Consequences of Dreamforce

It’s worthwhile to consider the economic consequences of Dreamforce — the products announced as well as the cultural issues it raised.  Now, I am not an economist and I encourage you to think about that and maybe not read this if that matters. Many people might look at the news coming out of San Francisco [...]

Eric Schmidt and Marc Benioff

Necessity is the mother of invention and last year when Bill Clinton was late for the closing keynote, Marc may have discovered an ideal medium for closing out Dreamforce.  This year he perfected it. I don’t know if Clinton was scheduled to give a conventional speech last year or a sit down interview I only [...]

Data, Here and There

One of the more announcements Marc Ben off made in his Day 1 Keynote was related to database.com.  The news is that Salesforce is now enabling its customers to store their data on their own hardware inside their data centers. There is a need or at least a demand for this capability as many large [...]

B2C Social Today, B2B Tomorrow?

Salesforce has been hammering the social enterprise message all day and will continue to do so for a long time.  It’s a good message and it dovetails with the subscription economy as the one-two punch for new fangled company organization.  That means everyone, not just new companies, but all companies will be attracted to social [...]

Salesforce Riding High, Opens Dreamforce

Salesforce.com is riding the crest of wave after wave of good news as it starts Dreamforce, its annual convocation for customers, prospects, the press and analyst communities.  Forty thousand people are expected in San Francisco for the event at some point in the week. In a sign of how big this event has become, last [...]

ERP Is Dead — Zuora Chief Says

Is CRM far behind? There was brisk business in associated user group meetings in San Francisco before Dreamforce.  For some reason I don’t understand Dreamforce starts in the middle of the week this year which is fortunate for two reasons.  Huricane Irene clobbered travel operations up and down the east coast over the weekend and [...]

Previewing Dreamforce

People keep calling me to ask what Salesforce is going to announce and Dreamforce.  My standard answer is, how would I know?  I get briefings like a lot of analysts but in a situation like this you usually have to promise to hold the news until the company makes its announcements.  This is not new [...]