Salesforce for small businesses gets thumbs up from one small biz

Date: Dec 03, 2013

SAN FRANCISCO — No one can argue that small businesses have it easy. With smaller bankrolls than some of their larger competitors, anything that can help them operate on a budget is seen as a blessing. With Salesforce for small businesses, easy fixes likeSalesforce.com apps can mean big changes in day-to-day life within the company.

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We caught up with James Christy, vice president of business development at Postali LLC, a small legal advertising firm in Columbus, Ohio, at Dreamforce 13 to talk about how he benefitted from attending the conference and what he found most valuable during his time there.

Christy said that he and his co-workers wanted to look into matters that often get overlooked in time-crunched small businesses and discussed goals for his company that include streamlining their processes, adopting marketing automation and picking up other how-to tips.

“Hearing about how many apps, add-ons and new technologies are available every day is inspiring,” he said, adding that he and his colleagues look forward to trying out the Salesforce apps and seeing how they can be used.

http://blogs.wsj.com/cio/2013/12/16/salesforce-com-to-join-openstack-cloud-project/?mod=WSJ_hpp_sections_cio

Salesforce.com to Join OpenStack Cloud Project

The standard-bearer for the software-as-a-service movement will make its platform available on computing equipment running an open source operating system.

Salesforce.com Inc.CRM +0.06%, the cloud-based software vendor, will make its services available on servers running an open source operating system known as OpenStack, according to Graham Weston, chairman and co-founder of Rackspace Hosting Inc., a cloud vendor which has been promoting OpenStack for several years.

Salesforce.com declined to comment for this article, saying it does not “comment on rumors or speculation.”

Salesforce.com, which developed a popular cloud-based contact management application for salespeople, has been broadening its offerings to include other business functions including marketing and human resources. The principle of public software-as-a-service is that customers don’t have to purchase computing equipment, and can further reduce their expenses by sharing the cost of infrastructure with other customers. Salesforce has developed a platform that other vendors can use to develop and market other services, such as time or expense management, creating new revenue streams for Salesforce.com. But Salesforce.com has been criticized for having developed its platform using a proprietary computer language that makes it difficult for customers to switch to another vendor.

The move to OpenStack will help the company attract more developers to write applications for its services platform by giving them confidence that whatever applications they develop will also work on other cloud platforms. It will also give comfort to businesses concerned that they would be unable to transfer applications and data created with those applications, should they want to switch vendors and sever their relationship with Salesforce.com.

Mr. Weston, whose company offers Web hosting services for businesses, said OpenStack “puts all the power back in the CIO’s hands” because it means they’re free to move their data to any cloud vendor that uses OpenStack. “No CIO in America should subject themselves to being locked in at the infrastructure layer,” he told CIO Journal during a telephone interview Friday.

The OpenStack website lists as members computer equipment makers such as Dell Inc., Hewlett Packard Co., Cisco Systems Inc., and Intel Corp., and Web hosting and cloud infrastructure firms such as DreamHost LLC, Liquid Web Inc., and CloudScaling.

According to Denis Pombriant, principal analyst for independent research firm Beagle Research Group LLC, adopting OpenStack “is a good business move” for Salesforce.com. The company recently introduced a new platform, Salesforce 1, which helps customers develop new applications and manage existing applications running on its earlier platform without having to create separate interfaces between them. “That’s a tremendous boon to any enterprise that’s looking to host its business applications on a futuristic, modern platform,” he told CIO Journal.

Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research for Nucleus Research Inc., says the new service allows Salesforce.com to appeal to “a broader community of developers.” Perhaps more importantly, it helps Salesforce.com position itself as a more open company. “Real or not, there’s a perceived lock-in [when becoming a Salesforce.com customer], and open source will reduce concerns about that,” she said.

Michael Hickins, Editor, Wall Street Journal

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