Salesforce.com’s attempt at cloud computing with Haagen-Dazs
By Justin Montgomery
Salesforce.com is trying to expand on its already popular web-based CRM SaaS by launching Force.com- an environment made for developers to create applications that can work in unison with its CRM software. As a forerunner for the service, the company has announced Haagen-Dazs as its first high-profile client.
Salesforce describes “Force.com” as a “platform-as-a-service,” in which developers can create applications that have nothing to do with CRM- that can all work together as a hosted platform for business users, according to InformationWeek. The customized features of the soon-to-be force.com platform were originally created for Haagen-Dazs in 2005, two years before Salesforce formally announced Force.com in the first place.
Haagen-Dazs has been a long-time customer of Salesforce, and wanted to expand on the CRM features it was already using. Since the corporate side of Haagen-Dazs is made up primarily of franchisees, the company needed a customizable CRM that let it manage real estate leads and potential franchise owner leads from its website and other sources. When the company wanted to expand beyond this, Salesforce together with Reside, a Minneapolis-based software consulting firm, further customized the service to let Haagen-Dazs track franchise store openings, remodel dates, inspection results, and track the training status of new shop owners.
This combination and further development of Salesforce’s core CRM technology on behalf of Reside, was the birth of Force.com. Salesforce has been looking for opportunities to expand its offerings while staying close to its roots of an all-inclusive CRM- offered as SaaS (Software-as-a-Service.) By rolling the CRM into other business applications, as well as throwing third-party developer creations into the mix, the idea of “Platform-as-a-service” (PaaS) might just work. It would be one of the many upcoming companies trying the new idea of “cloud computing.”
I’ve experimented with CRM software a lot in the past, and have always wondered why Salesforce didn’t take the route other CRM providers such as SugarCRM took- to offer open-source, and thus freely available, versions of their software. I guess this is a good indication of Salesforce’s initiative to open things up a little, but developers have been creating things for SugarCRM for a while now, and most likely, already have a huge head start on Salesforce.
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September 3rd, 2008
It’s true that offering cloud style hosting is proving a very popular route for customers seeking CRM. It takes away infrastructure concerns and with a proper cloud set-up allows for rapid provisioning (and more importantly re-provisioning) without the need for the complicated useage forecasts required for a typical physical server solution.
However, there is little point in choosing an open source solution if the vendor’s SaaS solution either doesn’t allow customers access to the code base, or locks in the customer with the vendor when it comes to product customisation.
That’s why The Sugar Refinery, for example, provides fully hosted SaaS SugarCRM solutions whilst still allowing the customer to access what is essentially their own source code - allowing them to modify and grow their solution, or integrate it with the rest of their business, as they see fit.
September 3rd, 2008
The link in the above comment (SugarCRM) is incorrect. It should point to http://www.thesugarrefinery.com