Zwakke economie deert Salesforce.com nog niet

Wat tegenstrijdige berichtgeving over Salesforce.com. AG meldt dat Salesforce.com de economische recessie goed doorstaat, alsof dat effect al merkbaar zou zijn. Begrijp me niet verkeerd, ik hoop voor ons allemaal dat het overwaait, maar deze voorbarige conclusies zijn ook niet echt nieuws.

Anyway, AG meldt:

… Salesforce.com lijkt de economische recessie tot nu toe goed te doorstaan. De Amerikaanse online-aanbieder van software voor klantenrelatiebeheer (CRM) wist de omzet in het derde kwartaal van zijn gebroken boekjaar met 43 procent op te vijzelen naar 276 miljoen dollar. ….

Source: Zwakke economie deert Salesforce.com nog niet

Dit terwijl de analisten zich juist erge zorgen maken over het instorten van de operating cashflow :

… Salesforce.com Inc. shares declined Friday after the Web-based software provider's fiscal fourth-quarter outlook essentially met Wall Street expectations, but some analysts expressed concerns about a drop in its third-quarter cash flow and increasing competition.

Salesforce's stock fell 51 cents, or 2.2 percent, to $22.32, and hit a 52-week low of $20.82 earlier in the session.

Late Thursday, the company said its fiscal third-quarter profit jumped 55 percent on an increase in customers and forecast fiscal fourth-quarter earnings of 6 cents to 7 cents per share on $284 million to $285 million in revenue.

Analysts polled by Thomson Reuters expect a profit of 7 cents per share on $289.4 million in sales.

Salesforce also said its operating cash flow for the quarter totaled $17.1 million, which compares with $52 million in the year-ago quarter. The company said a change in its invoicing seasonality, strength in the dollar, an increase in prepaid expenses related mostly to payments for some Dreamforce vendors and a tax expense led to the drop.

In a client note, Piper Jaffray analyst Mark Murphy called Salesforce's third-quarter results "a mixed bag" since revenue and earnings-per-share beat expectations and billings met expectations, but the company's cash flow missed his expectation for $63 million. …

Source: MSN Money

Salesforce is (nog?) onbezorgd over concurrentie

Computable publiceerde afgelopen week een artikel met een aantal citatten van de strategiedirecteur van SalesForce.com. De strategie is blijkbaar competitie “bashing” …

… De softwarepakketten van traditionele leveranciers als SAP en Microsoft zijn duur, inefficiënt en achterhaald. Dat zegt de strategiedirecteur van Salesforce.com. Hij is niet onder de indruk van de concurrentie op de markt van bedrijfsapplicaties die op het internet draaien. ….

…  Ook voor Microsoft heeft Martin geen goed woord over. "Met Azure proberen ze over twee jaar in één klap leider te worden op de markt van cloud computing. Maar dat gaat natuurlijk niet zo maar. Ze lopen jaren achter op dat gebied. Wij werken er al sinds 2000 aan, dus hoe komen ze erbij dat ze alles in een keer goed doen?" Volgens Martin zoeken bedrijven een manier om met kleine investeringen grote verdiensten terug te krijgen. "Dat gaat met Azure echt niet gebeuren. Hopelijk komt Microsoft op tijd met dat inzicht en gaan ze nieuwe oplossingen bieden, die aansluiten op de bestaande cloud. Daarbij is iedereen het meeste gebaat." …

Source: Salesforce is onbezorgd over concurrentie

Mooi he “traditionele software leveranciers”. Zonder hen was er geen markt geweest en het is behoorlijk kortzichtig te veronderstellen dat deze partijen stilzitten ..

En “aansluiten op de bestaande cloud” vind ik ook een mooie uitspraak. Kan iemand mij het “adres”van de bestaande cloud mailen aub …

Dhr. Martin insinueert veel. Voorlopig heeft Salesforce.com een indrukwekkende CRM SaaS oplossing. (punt)

Voor cloud computing of 'Platform-as-a-Service' komt veel meer kijken dan het hosten van websites op deze zelfde 'cloud'.
Wat Dhr Martin onderschat is dat Microsoft heel ver voor 2000 is gestart met een platform visie, een platform in deze context houdt in dat er bedrijven zijn die adviseren, ontwerpen, impementeren en onderhouden (Consultacies, SI's)kortom het gehele partner eco-systeem. En last but not least developers (developers, developers, developers ken je het filmpje nog) Azure wordt bereikbaar voor miljoenen developers en ISV's wereldwijd.

Al hun kennis is 100% bruikbaar in deze nieuwe context; begin je eens voor te stellen wat dat betekent.

Zoals op de PDC is aangekondigd wordt naast het .NET applicatie framework ook ondersteuning gepland voor o.a. Jave, Ruby, Eclipse. De resources en platform die Microsoft over de jaren heeft opgebouwd, zoals Live Services, SharePoint Services en CRM zijn of komen beschikbaar in Windows Azure.

"Voortploeteren" zoals in bovenstaand artikel en de citaten van Dhr Martin wordt gesteld is een grove onderschatting van partijen als Microsoft. Een artikel op Internetnews.com illusteert dit eens te meer

"SaaS" visie op CRM erg eenzijdig

Afgelopen week stond er een goed stuk over CRM oplossingen op de Computable Saas Opinie pagina :

... SaaS verandert het CRM-toneel

Met de komst van SaaS is de crm-markt zijn er nieuwe kansen en mogelijkheden voor eindgebruikers ontstaan. Peter van Tilburg, manager crm service line bij Accenture in Amsterdam, legt uit wat de strerke en zwakke punten van de verschillende SaaS-crm-vormen zijn. ...

Het artikel is goed, maar erg zwart wit; er is SaaS - alleen Salesforce.com als we naar de voorbeelden kijken- en er in 'on premise' - de "oude" wereld zoals het vaak wordt afgezet.

Met het grootste gemak worden de oplossingen in een van deze 2 categoerieen ingedeeld:

... Wat we momenteel zien, is dat de markt voor crm-software in twee groepen is verdeeld: softwareleveranciers die SaaS-crm-oplossingen aanbieden naast hun bestaande crm-oplossingen in huis of on-premise (zoals Oracle/Siebel, SAP en Microsoft) en leveranciers die zuivere SaaS-crm-diensten aanbieden (bijvoorbeeld Salesforce.com, RightNow en Digiprize) ...

Het artikel deelt Microsoft voor het gemak maar in bij de 'on premise' CRM oplossingen, een achterhaalde indeling. Microsoft's partners bieden namelijk al geruime tijd CRM als een hosted oplossing aan. Organisaties hebben keuze uit verschillende business / infra modellen als het aankomt op Microsoft Dynamics CRM :

The power of choice

Microsoft Dynamics CRM provides you with the Power of Choice so you can evolve your business unencumbered by technology limitations. Multiple deployment options are available to suit your business current and future business needs:

On-premise. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is deployed easily in the IT environment of any company, from small business to enterprise. It provides a full suite of marketing, sales, service functionality with a native Microsoft Outlook user experience, and it can quickly be tailored to meet your business needs. Because Microsoft Dynamics CRM products run on the same code base, you can easily switch from an on-premise model to a software-plus-services environment.

Partner-hosted. Microsoft Dynamics CRM is offered as a software-plus-services solution by our partners around the world. They deliver fast, flexible CRM solutions hosted in their own data centers and tailored to fit the needs of various markets or industries. And since all Microsoft Dynamics CRM products run the same code base, you can easily move from partner-hosted Microsoft Dynamics CRM to an on-premise environment or even Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. View hosted CRM partners.

Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online. Microsoft Dynamics CRM Online is delivers a fast, flexible software-plus-services solution that is operated within Microsoft data centers. It offers an outstanding user experience through Microsoft Outlook or a Web browser, with rich configuration and customization capabilities. Because its built on the same code base as other Microsoft Dynamics CRM offerings, you can easily move to a partner-hosted or on-premise environment.

(CRM Online is momentaal in beta in de VS en nog niet internationaal beschikbaar)

De visie van Microsoft is er een van Software + Services, organsiaties willen een keuze in de vorm waarin zij software / fucntionaliteit implementeren / licenceren. Dit is voor organsiaties die CRM implementeren niet anders ...

Salesforce.com Suffers Outage

One of the downsides of a full 'in the cloud' service ...

... One of Salesforce.com's key North American CRM servers, NA5, was up and down for most of the business day Feb. 11 following a software upgrade, a Salesforce customer who asked to remain anonymous told eWEEK.

The unstable server caused some havoc in an unspecified number of customers' accounts, the customer said.
The software upgrade was installed over the weekend, but at 8:22 a.m. Pacific time, the company's internal server information Web page said,  "NA5 Service Degradation: The technology operations team has been made aware of intermittent service disruptions to NA5. Please check back for further updates."

Salesforce.com, based in San Francisco, subsequently reported similar "service degradations" at 9:26 a.m., 10:19 a.m., 11:23 p.m. and 12:20 p.m. before announcing at 2:04 p.m. that "the Salesforce.com Technology team has restored the service issue with NA5 at 22:11 UTC. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you."

The tech op team did not specify exactly what the root cause of the problem was. That information may be posted by tomorrow, a Salesforce.com employee told eWEEK. The employee did not want his name used because he is not authorized to speak for the company. ...

Source: eWeek.com

Salesforce to launch development-as-a-service

That's the interesting thing with SaaS, organisations prove to be very innovative when it comes to pricing models ...

... Stealing a page from the Apple iTunes playbook, Salesforce.com announced on Thursday a $0.99 pricing model.

The introductory subscription pricing is on a per-log-in basis and is meant to accelerate the adoption of the SaaS (software as a service) ?model into such areas as human resources, employee expense and vacation requests, and job recruiting, where an infrequent usage model would not justify a monthly subscription fee.

?In a category like vacation requests, HR may live in that but every employee is not accessing it every day. This is for a new community,? said Ariel Kelman, senior director for platform product marketing.

The $0.99 pricing will be good for one year and will rise to $5 per log-in with a maximum five log-ins per user per month starting in 2009.

?Salesforce also announced a new Cloud Computing Architecture which Kelman characterized as ?development as a service.?

Dubbed the Force.com Development-as-a Service, the technology also includes the year-long .99 cent pricing model and uses the Force.com development platform which will also offer a .99 cent per log in service for developers.

Development-as-a-Service will give users a set of development tools in the cloud and a metadata API which so that developers can access code and the database schema. ...

Source: Salesforce to launch development-as-a-service
Date Published: Thu, 17 Jan 2008

AG: Salesforce.com maakt 'social networks' mogelijk

Logische ontwikkeling. In een aantal gevallen heb ik al "plaxo" achtige functionaliteit meegemaakt van bedrijven die je als klant ge gelegenheid geven je eigen gegeven in hun CRM systeem bij te houden. De oplossing van Salesforce.com lijkt hierop met dien verstande dat ze blijkbaar ook 'doorgelinkt' worden naar anderen in het netwerk (neem aan dat dat een opt-in functie is.

... Online softwareleverancier Salesforce.com heeft zijn platform uitgebreid met functionaliteiten die vergelijkbaar zijn met die van online netwerken als Facebook. Salesforce-klanten die met elkaar willen partneren kunnen zo bijvoorbeeld orderinformatie en leads uitwisselen.

De gebruikers kunnen elkaar uitnodigen en intekenen op updates van bepaalde updates in klantendatabases. Ook gezamenlijke rapportage en workflow worden mogelijk. 'Salesforce to Salesforce' is gebaseerd op het Force.com-integratieplatform en is automatisch beschikbaar voor alle gebruikers. Per bedrijfsverbinding dient wel 1200 dollar betaald te worden. (Freek Blankena) ...

Source: Salesforce.com maakt 'social networks' mogelijk
Automatisering Gids
Date Published: Wed, 05 Dec 2007

The unprofitability of the SaaS business is an illusion caused by growth

Curt Monash of the Monash Report blog shares some thought on the (un)profitability of the SaaS business by taking Salesforce.com's earning as an example. He makes a very big assumption proving his point ... :

There’s a fallacy going around to the general effect:

Salesforce.com is the biggest SaaS company. Salesforce.com is making next to no profit. Therefore, SaaS is currently not a profitable business.

But that’s nonsense. Here’s why.

If you look at Salesforce.com’s second quarter 10K, 6-month revenues were $339 million, up from $223 million the year before. Marketing and sales costs were $174 million, slightly over 50% of revenue. Profits were negligible. The company says the churn rate is negligible, so that 50% of revenue was spent increasing sales by 50%.

Now let’s suppose that the SaaS (Software as a Service) industry becomes more mature. 1% would no longer be a realistic churn rate. Let’s suppose it instead goes to 10%+, based on both true replacements and client disappearances. Let’s suppose the revenue growth rate settles down to somewhere in the teens. Bam. To a first approximation we can whack marketing and sales by a factor of 2, and take pretax margins well over 20%.

Of course, things aren’t really that simple. It’s also necessary to market and sell for customer retention. And true marketing cost (as opposed to sales) isn’t closely tied to the number of opportunities you have. But on the other hand, as you grow there are all kinds of economies of scale too. So to a second approximation, 25 – 40% pretax margins don’t seem unrealistic. ...

Source: The unprofitability of the SaaS business is an illusion caused by growth
Author: Curt Monash
Date Published: Tue, 25 Sep 2007

AccMan: Just how far are we on the saas/on-demand journey

Dennis Howlett gives a good perspective on some of the SaaS solutions out there. Many of these vendors seem to struggle with integration / interoperability. This could be a choice not to integrate, but in many cases it could also come down to plain old development costs or localisation issues ... Nevertheles a challenge.

... A recent email from a company in the market for an on-demand business solution got me thinking about the current state of play. This particular company is a NetSuite user. It is thoroughly ticked off with what it sees as early stage, buggy software. It runs an operation which uses an online shopping cart that ’should’ feed seamlessly to the back end accounting and it wants CRM capability. It’s a 6 person business.

I was hard pressed to provide an alternative vendor operating in the UK capable of providing that level of functionality, though I did point them to Pearl and Twinfield as possible contenders. Xero looks cool but doesn’t really have the capabilities this company wants. The company said it is seriously considering Salesforce.com for CRM and hoped there is an accounting vendor that plugs into the SFdC platform. There is - but not for the UK, or rather not for a company of this size.

I was struck by two things:

• Salesforce.com has clearly done a great job of grabbing mindhsare. I’ve said before that potential customers of all sizes but especially small businesses are now looking closely at SFdC as a supplier. A year ago they would not have bothered.
  
• Despite its size, the company is asking for sophisticated capabilities. It seems that even the smallest of organizations has a level of expectation with which the vendor community struggles. ...

Source: Just how far are we on the saas/on-demand journey
Author: Dennis Howlett
Date Published: Wed, 26 Sep 2007

Oracle, SAP, salesforce.com, NetSuite thoughts

Denis Pombriant of Beagle Research Group shares some thoughts on SAP's Business By Design and also on NetSuite.

... SAP introduced Business By Design (BBD) which I have previously commented on a little. Let me say here that it isn’t out till 2008 but that it will be fun to take a look at. At first blush it appears to be something that the installed base will like but that may not compete favorably with the likes of NetSuite or salesforce.com. SAP has time and money to make improvements but markets don’t wait around. NetSuite will have cash from its IPO — are we there yet? — soon and then the fight will heat up. Also, all those salesforce.com partners will have something to say about front and back office integration and applications that span the two. ...

... Back to NetSuite, a last thought, isn’t it amazing how they continue to carve out their niche? You keep waiting for them to go head-to-head with someone like salesforce.com but it doesn’t really happen. They’ve just introduced more vertical applications in the services and wholesale/distribution sectors and if anything they compete more with SAP than salesforce.com (as they should). But NetSuite is a native mid-market player and in a close game right now you still have to pick them over SAP and the points (recall SAP’s BBD isn’t out till sometime next year).

NetSuite, more than most other vendors, needs to start thinking about GRC issues (assuming they haven’t already). Specifically, GRC is a big enterprise idea right now but it will need to be brought down to size for the SMB and mid-market and that’s NetSuite’s sweet spot. ...

Source: Oracle, SAP, salesforce.com, NetSuite thoughts

Denis stresses the importance of GRC and I thought GRC ? What's GRC ? Fortunatly Denis did a post on GRC :

There's a new category of enterprise computing beginning to take shape and I believe it will be important to the front office and CRM.  The category in question is GRC which stands for governance, risk, and compliance.  Governance became a big deal when too many corporations let down their shareholders as well as other stakeholders like employees and imploded due to management misconduct.  Companies like Tyco and Enron will be GRC whipping-boys and shorthand for bad management for a long time.

Source : Pay attention to GRC