Marc Benioff, Please Stop Confusing Me


Salesforce.com has definitely reached powerhouse status, and is one of the main proponents of SaaS. For this, I thank them and really see them as a driving force. That aside, what is going on in Marc Benioff’s head? I wrote an article a while back about Salesforce.com using Apex as a lock-in strategy, which spilled over into a ZDNet blog article, and was vehemently opposed by Salesforce.com employees in both articles comments, with arguments ranging from there is no lock-in to there is no way around lock-in and expecting application portability is unreasonable.

While I respect the various positions on the topic, it seems as if there is a point of contention between Salesforce.com’s offerings and their CEO/Thought Leader’s vision. Dan Farber of ZD Net recently interviewed Benioff at the Web 2.0 conference. Here, Benioff touts the platform as the next evolution of the web & SaaS, where, to paraphrase Mr. Benioff, one will be able to move data and code from one platform to the other, and where the platforms ability to deliver quality service and value will define whether or not an application remains there or moves elsewhere…how is that anything like Apex and AppExchange? I’m quite certain no one will run Apex code other than Salesforce.com, at least not now. Either Mr. Benioff is drinking someone else’s Kool Aid, or we can expect Apex to become some sort of open standard. In all seriousness, am I missing something here?

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November 15th, 2006
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Comment Number:
1
Written by:
Kingsley
Posted on:
November 17, 2006 at 1:24 pm

Sinclair, here’s the exact quote: “Benioff calls it moving from killer apps to killer platforms, of which there will be many.”

If this is what you’re paraphrasing, I see *no way* in which this can be interpreted as “code and data will be portable across platforms”. It seems to me like he’s saying that the industry will move from creating killer apps to creating many killer platforms.

PS: As always, these are my opinions and they are not endorsed by my employer.

Comment Number:
2
Written by:
Sinclair Schuller
Posted on:
November 17, 2006 at 2:19 pm

Kingsley, I was actually paraphrasing Mr. Benioff, who was being interviewed in a video on Mr. Farber’s post, and not the text of Mr. Farber’s post. In the video, Mr. Benioff’s comment is near verbatim to my paraphrase.

Alas, the video is now gone. I wonder where it went? Nonetheless, I appreciate your attempt to provide clarification, but we are clearly referencing two sources. Unfortunately, my source pulled a Keyser Söze. ”And poof. Just like that, he’s gone.”

PS: I never assumed your opinions belonged to anyone other than yourself;-).

Comment Number:
3
Written by:
Kingsley Joseph
Posted on:
November 17, 2006 at 4:35 pm

Unfortunate. On the upside, you did remind me to rent The Usual Suspects, which I haven’t seen yet.

Comment Number:
4
Written by:
Sinclair Schuller
Posted on:
November 17, 2006 at 5:21 pm

Unfortunate indeed! Renting that movie is a brilliant idea; you’ll surely appreciate the reference.

Comment Number:
5
Written by:
Sinclair Schuller
Posted on:
November 17, 2006 at 8:49 pm

For anyone still reading this post, the video is back up. The section I refer to as the “paraphrase” in the article can be found from 2:20 on.

Comment Number:
6
Written by:
SaaS Blogs - » What to Look For in an On Demand Platform (aka SaaS Platform)
Posted on:
November 28, 2006 at 4:03 pm

[…] The clamor and buzz surrounding on-demand platforms for SaaS has been growing steadily. I recently wrote an article on Marc Benioff’s latest platform position. In the video interview I reference, Mr. Benioff highlights some key, defining aspects of platforms. Although in the article I discuss a prevailing ambiguity in Benioff’s vision, I must say that I agree with most of his statements regarding platforms. I was recently reading an excellent post by Phil Wainewright that summarized panel discussions at the SIIA OnDemand Summit. In the summary, Mr. Wainewright discusses how most of the panelists congregated around the SaaS platform & ecosystem campfire. I realize that the discussions were high level, but the topic coupled with Mr. Benioff’s observations prompted me to think about the next step: what are some of the traits that *might* (notice the * for ‘proceeding with caution’) define a successful platform in the future. I came up with the following, in no particular order: […]