Do you wonder if Salesforce.com listens to their customers and what they want from the user community? Take it from me, they do even if it takes a little squeaking to get their ear. Join me, Pete Fife, to discuss taking the Salesforce.com community beyond disucssion boards and into the new world of social community. I started the customer salesforce user groups back in 2003 and although we have come a long way since then, there is a long way to go to really enable us customers to define our own vision of the Salesforce.com Community. Take advantage of the chance to bring our collective wishes for the user community to the ears of Salesforce.com. They are our captive audience and ready to listen.
Join the Facebook group Salesforce User Community 3.0 to stay up to date and find out when and were we'll meet at Dreamforce: http://www.new.facebook.com/group.php?gid=26018154108
The event, titled, "New Rules for Software: From On-Premise to On-Demand", will be held on Wednesday, September 24 in Malvern, PA.
Panelists include:
Bobby Napiltonia: SVP, Worldwide Channels and Alliances, salesforce.com
Rishi Chandra: Product Manager for Google Enterprise, Google
For more information and to register, visit the Eastern Technology Council's website.
Salesforce's official press release is here.
From the Salesforce developer wiki:
The new Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs makes it easy to develop Force.com applications that make the most of the capabilities of Google Data APIs, including read and write access to data and content in Google Apps.
You can read all the details on the wiki.
TechCrunchIT liveblogged the event - you can read it here (along with interviews with Marc Benioff and Vic Gundotra).
(via dschach)
Additional coverage:
Salesforce.com's official press release
gokubi.com: Salesforce makes it easier to code to Google Apps
force.com blog: Connecting the Clouds - Introducing the Force.com Toolkit for Google Data APIs
force.com blog: Announcement of Google Data APIs on Force.com
Official Google data APIs Blog: Salesforce.com Releases Google Data Toolkit for Apex developers
CNET News: Marc Benioff's mantra: Anything but Microsoft
VentureBeat: Salesforce and Google take their partnership a step further with new APIs
For a full agenda or to register, visit Salesforce's Tour de Force site.
Based on his interview with Robert Scoble earlier this week, as well as other sources, Benioff will be announcing another Salesforce/Google partnership; likely a platform type play.
Listen to the keynote live, online at 1pm EST on Monday!
The interview is titled, "Salesforce.com to Become Platform Juggernaut, Says CEO".
Scoble twittered about the interview saying:
There was some news sorta hidden in the Salesforce.com interview. On Monday they are gonna announce a platform deal with Google.
Track the Twitter reaction to the video here.
In an interview with AuctionBytes after the keynote, Gross commented on eBay's announcement of Project Echo which will allow third party developers to integrate applications directly into eBay.
I'm still looking for audio or video of the keynote and will update here if I find it.
I'm guessing his interview with Benioff (which sounds like it was done with a "real" video camera) will be up shortly on his FastCompany.TV site.
In the meantime, however, you can watch his cell phone video interview with Kraig Swensrud, VP of Applications, where they talk about Salesforce and Google:
Or, this one with Ariel Kelman from the Product Platform Marketing group where they discuss the Force.com platform:
Ribbit's product, Ribbit for Salesforce, integrates your mobile phone and Salesforce.com. Features include receiving voice messages along with text transcriptions right in your Salesforce.com instance. Watch a demo video here.
If you sign-up for their free 30 day trial you are automatically entered into the drawing. The winner will receive:
Read complete sweepstakes details.
"As 2008 CEO of the Year, salesforce.com's Marc Benioff represents the ideal combination of leadership in corporate responsibility and financial performance," says CRO Magazine Publisher Jay Whitehead. "He has consistently demonstrated that a company can deliver stellar results to Wall Street while remaining committed to a 1/1/1 Model program to benefit the communities in which it resides.
The site is definitely in beta as there are a number of limitations -- I had to wait to have my registration approved before getting a username and password. Additionally, there are no comments and all ideas are reviewed by NJ Transit before posting. I'd rethink that one if I were you guys - it may be beta, but let's not create additional hurdles here (the registration process is painful enough).
I'm sure I spoke for those of us in the Northeast Corridor when I say I hope they see enough usage during the beta period (reported to be a month) to move forward.
Mea Culpa: This is from last year's commencement (2007)! Thanks anonymous!
Steve highlights some functionality over at his blog.
And, as I was typing this, the Summer '08 preview page went live at the Successforce site. NOTE: None of the links are working yet.
Update: Links are working!
And, since CNBC does not allow the video to be embedded, you'll have to go check it out on their site directly.
Melissa pushes him on Google acquisition rumors to which he answers (on the second try), "...as a public company CEO, I can't comment on rumors of acquisition."
The new product is available immediately to existing Salesforce customers (get started here) and includes tight integration with Gmail, Gtalk, Google Docs and Google Calendar.
You can watch the announcement live at 3pm EST today.
A flurry of tweets in the Twitterverse.....
A video demo from Salesforce is after the jump:
Additional coverage:
Perspectives on Salesforce: Salesforce & Google Apps Integration Announced
nonprofitCRM.org: It's Official - Salesforce and Google Apps Unite
NYTimes: Google and Salesforce Join to Fight Microsoft
CNET News.com: Google, Salesforce link up for business apps
ZDNet: Google and Salesforce.com: Why don't they merge
(Thanks to Alex and all others who sent this in!)
Keep your eye on this URL for Ideas tagged "comming_in_summer_08". (RSS feed)
The usual logo contest has been running for a couple of weeks on the IdeaExchange. (I voted for the Orange Cremecicle)
According to a conversation overheard at the Philly City Tour, the pre-release should be available for sign-up in a few weeks.
Salesforce has audio from the event archived at their investor site.
CNET's Dan Farber has a good analysis on his Outside the Lines blog; he gives the win to Benioff.
(Thanks to those who wrote in with this one.)
Marc Benioff: $0
Steve Cakebread: $262,500 (the best paid Salesforce admin I know)
Kenneth Juster: $175,000
Jim Steele: $262,500
Additionally, the following mid-year bonuses were paid on September 28, 2007:
Steve Cakebread: $67,500
Kenneth Juster: $45,000
Jim Steele: $67,500
According to the invitation, "Marc Benioff will be hosting a special event and making some important annoucements..."
As Adam points out, should make for some interesting fodder between now and then.
Starbucks has started promoting the "my Starbucks Idea" site on their homepage - the site is running at force.com with a custom url (mystarbucksidea.force.com).
The site has a clean look and feel and they appear to already have a good number of ideas and comments.
First Starbucks drops breakfast sandwiches, now they launch Ideas, what's next - losing the tip jar? :)
Jeff Jarvis has highlighted some of the more interesting ideas at his blog.
(via Jeff Jarvis)
A senior source close to Cisco, said that Mr Benioff was summoned as a direct result of my post. One of his meetings was with executives of Webex, a software as a service (SAAS) company acquired by Cisco last year for $3.2bn in cash.
"CNET News.com caught up with Benioff to talk about the future of software services as well as his plans to re-create Software.com as more of a computing platform."
A couple highlights:
Benioff on MSFT: I think Microsoft is still a dinosaur
Benioff on platform as a service: It's taken about a decade of Salesforce to kind of get the software service movement to really happen. We will be 10 years old on March 8 of next year. People overestimate what you can do in a year and they underestimate what you can do in a decade, unless you're (Apple CEO) Steve Jobs.
Benioff on online productivity applications: Those are not technologies that we want to create. We have our hands full in terms of doing our core areas.
While the Zoho suite of apps may be fine for personal use or even small-business use, Salesforce's bread-and-butter customers are not going to be taking their multi-hundred or multi-thousand seat installations that are most likely integrated with other legacy systems and migrating them to Zoho.
These customers expect a level of service, performance and trust that Salesforce has spent the past 9 years building and it's going to take a lot more than a free/$4 month service to move them.
According to Dietrich, just one Salesforce developer ("Jason"), built the demo in two weeks. CNET TV has a video of the demonstration.
Reaction from the Twittersphere:
Dave Huston: boring salesforce.com app demo on iPhone
AceyTech: Salesforce.com demo, **yawn**
Craig Patchett: Salesforce.com demo. Nice-looking app, also put together in 2 weeks.
hikikomori: Maybe the Salesforce guys should have come on before Spore.
April 8: Atlanta
April 10: Chicago
April 16: New York (Benioff keynote)
April 22: Boston
Here's a video they posted on YouTube promoting the event:
Update: Here's Benioff's keynote from the San Francisco Tour de Force event:
Listen to the audio webcast or dial-in at:
Domestically – (866) 901-SFDC or (866) 901-7332
Internationally – (706) 902-1764
Passcode: salesforce.com or 34062469
Uber-blogger Robert Scoble was at the event and using Qik, an application that can stream live video from your cell phone, he recorded Benioff's presentation (Salesforce's Steve Fisher was also part of the presentation).
You can catch an archive of the live stream on Scoble's Qik page:
Benioff at Abobe Engage: Part 1 (27 min.)
Benioff at Adobe Engage: Part 2 (4 min.)
More coverage:
Ben Galbraith's Blog: Salesforce
ZDNet.com: Marc Benioff on AIR (and Flex plus Flash)
The device contains personal information on current and previous Salesforce.com employees. According to a breach notification sent to the New Hampshire State Attorney General's office, no customer data was stored on the stolen device.
As a precaution, Salesforce is providing 12-months of credit monitoring for employees at no charge.
If you've had your fill of Microsoft/Yahoo news this week, read Tom's complete analysis.
More coverage:
TechCrunch: Salesforce Shopping Itself To Oracle For $75/Share
ZDNet: Salesforce pitching to Oracle at $75 a share
deal architect: salesforce.com in play?
March 18: Houston, TX - JW Marriott
March 19: Denver, CO - Hyatt Regency Denver
April 1: Philadelphia, PA - Hyatt Regency Philadelphia
April 3: Santa Clara, CA - Hyatt Regency Santa Clara
April 8: Austin, TX - Hilton Austin
April 10: Huntington Beach, CA - Hyatt Regency Huntington Beach
April 15: Miami, FL - InterContinental Miami
April 17: Montreal, Canada - Hyatt Regency Montreal
Registration: 1:30pm - 2:30pm
Success Tour Sessions: 2:30pm - 5:00pm
Expo Networking Reception: 5:00pm - 6:30pm
NA0, NA1, NA5 - February 8th
NA2, NA3, NA4 - February 15th
EU0, AP0 - February 16th
For specific times, you can view the entire schedule at trust.salesforce.com.
Campaignforce is a customized version of Salesforce.com created specifically for these groups. Some customers include the Ron Paul and Mitt Romney presidential campaigns, Senator John Kerry and Rep. Michael McCaul in Texas.
"Our vision is to replicate the same success that businesses have achieved using Internet technologies such as Facebook, YouTube and salesforce.com with how we run our campaign," said Justine Lam, online campaign manager, Ron Paul for President. "Salesforce has played an integral part in our Internet fundraising success and in harnessing the power of our volunteers around the country during the primaries."
On her move from Sun to Salesforce.com:
Sun was an amazing company. I really had a fabulous experience there. I learned a ton. I really feel like they shaped my career. But I had been there 12-and-a-half years, and I felt like I wasn't growing at the same pace that I had been growing at earlier in my career. I had discussions with several mentors, and one of them asked what I really needed to round out my resume and take it to the next step. Timing was everything. I wasn't actively looking, but I had just started to think seriously about what a move might look like and at that point, I received a call from salesforce.com. When I got to know them better and saw their vision, it just completely blew me away. I couldn't resist the challenge.
"I am offering our salesforce CRM software. I have purchased the service and no longer need it, but it does everything! I paid $17,000+ for it and have a 1 year contract that I do not need anymore."
I'm guessing the folks in Legal would have something to say about this. From the MSA (emphasis mine):
Salesforce.com hereby grants you a non-exclusive, non-transferable, worldwide right to use the Service, solely for your own internal business purposes, subject to the terms and conditions of this Agreement. All rights not expressly granted to you are reserved by salesforce.com and its licensors.
Prior to salesforce.com, Jakobsen managed product teams for several other Bay Area companies, including Sigaba, Ventaso and Onwire Technologies. He also spent ten years with Oracle where he ran product management for the tools division, designing a set of cross-platform UI report writers and report servers, and Developer/2000, Oracle's flagship development toolset.
Source: tmcnet
Packaged under the DaaS moniker (Development as a Service), the tools include:
Force.com Metadata API
Force.com IDE
Force.com Sandbox
Force.com Code Share
Utility Pricing for Force.com - "Force.com cloud (per login) pricing is now available. The list price is $5.00 per login with a maximum of 5 logins per user per month, and will be offered at a special promotional price of $0.99 per login now through the end of 2008. Customer must purchase 5 logins per named user which are good for one month. Force.com Cloud pricing is for occasional-use, widely-deployed apps and is available for platform use only and not for CRM applications."
And, the previous announcement that Apex is now available in Enterprise Edition.
Watch Adam Gross, VP, Platform Marketing, demo the new DaaS tools in this video on the Salesforce Developer Wiki.
Other coverage:
Between the Lines: Salesforce adds $5 per login pricing option and new developer tools
CenterNetworks: SalesForce Updates Force.com Platform and Offers New Pricing and $1 Million Developer Challenge
TechCrunch: Salesforce.com To Offer DaaS Service, New Pricing Model, Competition
While it's largely cosmetic -- a MUCH cleaner look, IMHO -- there is a new tagging feature that enables you to set a tag or tags on any forum post.
Additionally, there are a couple of tag widgets and a "My Subscriptions" widget on the main forum page.
Salesforce Administrators, week of January 14th
Salesforce Developers, Friday, January 18th
Keep your eye on the team's blog for more opportunities to participate.
Today Salesgenie.com announced that Mark Israelsen, Salesforce.com's SVP of Global Professional Services, joined the company as president.
Prior to joining Salesforce, Israelsen was Vice President of Global Alliances and Channels at Oracle.
Mr. Israelsen said, "It's a great honor to join Salesgenie.com and have the opportunity to build on its reputation as the leading provider of sales leads and mailing lists."
Some features that are sure to interest:
Apex Code in Enterprise Edition (with new Apex Sandbox)
Sandbox to Production
Advanced Validation Rules
Apex Code Packaging
Outer Joins Reporting
UPDATE: The main Spring '08 release page is here. It includes the pre-release signup, detailed release notes, video tour and admin preview.
The maintenance windows for customers are:
NA1: Friday, February 8th, 8pm PST - Saturday, February 9th, 2am PST
NA3: Friday, February 15th, 8pm PST - Saturday, February 16th, 2am PST
NA4: Friday, February 15th, 8pm PST - Saturday, February 16th, 2am PST
NA5: Friday, February 8th, 8pm PST - Saturday, February 9th, 2am PST
If you are on a different instance and have received your upgrade email, leave me a comment with the dates and I'll update the post.
(Hat Tip: Bryan)
A couple of the more popular ideas included in this release include processing inbound email in Salesforce.com and scheduling dashboard refreshes.
Salesforce's Thomas Tobin has posted a helpful writeup about the dashboard refresh feature on the Reporting and Dashboards Blog.
Thanks to everyone who sent this in!
Salesforce.com announced today that Polly Sumner is joining the firm as President, Platform, Alliances and Services. She will report directly to Benioff and oversee "the technology and marketing for the company's Force.com platform, alliances with global independent software vendors and service partners, and salesforce.com's professional services organization."Sumner worked at Oracle from 1987 to 1999 and was most recently President of Global Services for Telcordia.
According to this article on witi.com, Larry Ellison once described her as "the most aggressive man he's ever met."
So, here you are, 14 months late.
Oh, and Happy New Year too :)
You can buy three of the bars described as "...sickly sweet, but decent for making cookies with..." from this employee.
In addition to the description of the chocolate bars, you'll find this gem:
It doesn't make up for the 10% of our bonus that HR cuts off without telling us because we didn't meet some alleged profit milestones set by who-knows. Maybe you can help me buy that porche my manager promised me when I joined years and years ago.
Update: The chocolate bars went for $12.50 - what a bargain! Looks like the lucky winner is Treb Ryan, CEO of OpSource. Phil Wainewright has additional coverage at ZDNet.
Update: More photos here.
If you'd like to participate in the limited release, you need to contact your Account Executive.
Read the full post at Successforce.com.
Update: Salesforce's Jaime Grenney has posted a few demos for the Ideas product.