SalesForceWatch.com

Salesforcewatch Moved to New Host

2005-05-11T00:00:00.000-04:00

If you have http://salesforcewatch.blogspot.com bookmarked or if you followed an link to this site - you can now find the site here.

Sueltz Gone? Wong in?

2005-05-09T19:02:00.000-04:00

This news.com Missing Links post suggests that Salesforce.com President Patricia Sueltz is leaving the company.

Sources close to the company claim that she has taken the last several weeks off and does not plan to return.

In unrelated news, I heard Tom Wong has joined Salesforce.com in the marketing department.

Salesforce.com in photos

2005-04-27T20:11:00.000-04:00

Hmmm... is Tom Wong now at Salesforce?

See more of the CRMSuccess day wackiness in these photos.

Cakebread Gets a Raise

2005-04-15T21:27:00.000-04:00

According to this Salesforce.com 8-K filing from April 14th, CFO Steve Cakebread received a $50,000 raise effective February 1st. This puts his current salary at $300,000.

Scheduled Maintenance

2005-04-12T08:30:00.000-04:00

Just got an alert during login this morning; Salesforce.com is going to be performing scheduled maintenace this Saturday, April 16 from 10:00PM EST through Sunday, April 17 at 4:00AM EST.

Service Level Agreements?

2005-04-09T10:37:00.000-04:00

Came across this interesting tidbit in Salesforce's recent 10-K filing under the Operations section:

"We have entered into service level agreements with a small number of our customers warranting certain levels of uptime reliability."

The standard out-of-the box SLA that I reviewed last year was largely unimpressive.

I'd be anxious to hear from any of the "small number" of customers who have these custom SLAs to learn more details? Anyone?

Press Luncheon This Tuesday

2005-04-09T10:29:00.000-04:00

According to this lacking-in-details press release, Salesforce.com is hosting a press luncheon on Tuesday, April 12th at the Four Seasons Hotel in San Francisco featuring Marc Benioff.

Guess we'll find out what it's all about from the webcast which will be available in the Investor section of the Salesforce.com website.

Holding my breath......

Who Wants My Business The Least??

2005-04-09T10:21:00.000-04:00

Both Vettro and Sendia make wireless solutions for Blackberry access to Salesforce.com.

The unfortunate thing is that neither company's product supports our enterprise proxy server. I would have to guess that the company that comes through with support first will have a leg up!

Meanwhile, I guess we'll have to start building our own solution.

Philadelphia User Group Meeting - April 20th

2005-04-03T11:14:00.001-04:00

If you are a Salesforce.com user in the Philadelphia area, the 2nd user group meeting is taking place at Gartmore Global Investments in Conshohocken, PA on Wednesday, April 20th at 2pm.

The meeting is being sponsored by ActivePrime, makers of the data deduping and cleansing tool, CleanCRM.

Check out the Philadelphia blog for more details.

Salesforce.com Offer Letter

2005-03-26T08:20:00.000-05:00

As part of their 10-K filing yesterday, a copy of the standard Salesforce.com offer letter is included.

Also included as part of the letter are terms from key executives including Steve Cakebread, Jim Steele and Pat Sueltz.

New Help Wanted Board at Sforce

2005-03-17T22:26:00.000-05:00

Looks like Salesforce added a "Help Wanted/Jobs" board to the Sforce community forums yesterday.

Don't forget, I also scarf all Salesforce.com job postings from Craigslist.org and post them in the right column under "Work at Salesforce.com". (I use del.icio.us and the tag "sfdcjob")

Luke, I am your Father

2005-03-09T20:29:00.000-05:00

Salesforce is running a contest over at CustomForce.com called "Show Your Force". The winner gets two free passes to Dreamforce 2005 along with airfare and hotel accomodations.

If you've "used the power of Customforce's point-and-click customization" then you should probably enter.

If you have no idea what the sentence above means, then you should probably call your CSM.

Another thing, for a freaky talking-head video montage, click here.

Dear Wendy,

2005-03-09T20:21:00.000-05:00

In addition to writing the Golden Rules for CRM Success, it looks like Wendy Close, the former Gartner Analyst recently hired by Salesforce.com has taken on the "Ask Wendy" moniker.

As this post on the CRMSuccess blog indicates, feel free to send Wendy your questions about CRM strategies, benefits, budgets, etc. and Salesforce will use a nebulous formula to determine if they get posted on CRMSuccess.com for the world to see.

Feel free to "cc:" all Ask Wendy questions to mark [at] salesforcewatch[dot]com and I will post them here.

Search Infrastructure Upgrade

2005-03-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

As a follow-up to this post regarding slow search and indexing, a note on the CRMSuccess forums by Benji (Product Manager, Sforce) indicates that the search infrastructure was upgraded late last week.

Forum member, "daroz" indicates better results from his sample testing.

Microsoft Office Live Meeting Integration

2005-03-08T20:50:00.000-05:00

Salesforce.com announced today that it is working on an integration with Microsoft Office Live Meeting that will allow its users to run web conferences from directly within Salesforce.com.

Wonder if this is replacing the WebEx integration option already provided by Salesforce (announced a year ago) or in addition to?

Salesforce.com by Email

2005-03-08T13:37:00.000-05:00

Here's an promising-looking concept. XtendCRM lets you send an email from any device (cell phone, PDA, email client, etc) and retrive phone number, email address and/or
street address information about any contact in your Salesforce.com database.

You must be a user of the Enterprise Edition of Salesforce.com. I'm currently testing it using my Motorola V710 on the Verizon Network.

This looks like it will come in handy for quick lookups on the road.

SFDC Cribs

2005-03-07T17:21:00.000-05:00

Lots of insider transactions in the past several weeks.

NetMarketing Breakfast

2005-03-05T07:47:00.000-05:00

Tien Tzou, CMO of Salesforce.com, was mentioned in this review of B2B Magazine's "NetMarketing Breakfast" regarding the Salesforce.com website.

Benioff: Next Rollout in June '05

2005-03-01T08:05:00.000-05:00

Looks like it is official. According to this article, the next release of Salesforce.com will be in June 2005. Benioff made the announcement at the Reuters Technology Summit.

Salesforce.com Employee Blogs

2005-02-28T20:44:00.000-05:00

I came across this blog from a new Salesforce.com employee, Fugacious.org. Hopefully he'll start blogging SFDC!

Any others that you've come across? I'll post them here.

Up and Down

2005-02-24T22:45:00.000-05:00

Some frustrating performance issues the past couple of days with Salesforce.com. Scott over on the sforce forums sums up the issue nicely!

Read his post.

No spring release?

2005-02-20T15:35:00.000-05:00

Word on the CRMSuccess.com forums is that there will be no Spring Salesforce.com release this year.

I'll have to see what they say at the user group meeting in a couple of weeks.

Speaking of the user groups, there is finally a 'homepage' up for the Dream Force user group blogs.

Former Gartner Analyst Join CRMSuccess.com

2005-02-19T22:36:00.000-05:00

In a post dated in the future (2/21/05) - the Salesforce.com best practice blog announced that Wendy Close, a former Gartner Analyst, has joined the CRM Success team as Lead Analyst and are they already pushing her presentation, "1st Golden Rule of CRM Success".

Keep an eye out for 7 more rules!!!

Before joining Salesforce (or, should I say, CRMSuccess.com), Wendy was "lead analyst on customer relationship management strategies, technologies and suppliers for midsize businesses, midsize divisions of the large enterprise, and small firms."

Updated Personalized Account Review

2005-02-19T22:22:00.000-05:00

On their best practice blog yesterday, Salesforce.com announced an update to the Personalized Account Review. There are now over 40 personalization points you'll be able to monitor.

They have included a screen-shot, but it's too small to be viewed properly.

Pet Peeve on CRMSuccess blog: The posts (frequently referring to "I") do not include the author name.

Salesforce.com Announced Record Fiscal Fourth Quarter Results Today

2005-02-17T23:22:00.000-05:00

Highlights of today's fiscal fourth quarter results:

* Q4 Revenue soars 82% to $54.6 million year-over-year
* Q4 Paying Subscribers rise 32,000 to 227,000 up 79% year-over-year and up 16% sequentially
* Q4 Net Income rises to $3.6 million, from a prior-year Q4 loss of $765,000
* Q4 Earnings per Share rise to $0.03, a significant increase from a loss of $0.02 in the prior year period
* Raising Fiscal 2006 revenue and earnings guidance range

Get the full results from their website. (PDF)

Salesforce.com CFO Presenting at Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium

2005-02-17T23:08:00.000-05:00

No, this is not deja vu -- Steve Cakebread, Salesforce.com CFO, will be presenting at another executive retreat, I mean, technology conference at the "Jewel of the Desert".

This time it's the Goldman Sachs Technology Investment Symposium on Thursday, February 24th at the Arizona Biltmore Resort and Spa in Phoenix, a mere 39 acres of "lush gardens, glistening swimming pools and Frank Lloyed Wright-influenced architecture".

He will present at 12:00 pm (EST). An audio webcast will be available on Salesforce.com's website at: http://www.salesforce.com/investor.

Best Selling Dummies

2005-02-14T21:00:00.000-05:00

Fluff PR piece from Wiley about "Salesforce.com for Dummies".

Apparently, the book is the bestseller on the Amazon.com Computers & Internet bestseller list.

Wonder how many copies Salesforce.com bought?

I'm no laywer....

2005-02-13T20:54:00.000-05:00

but all of this looks and feels very familiar.... Nothing a few custom objects couldn't handle :)

Another Salesforce.com Book on the Way

2005-02-10T20:42:00.000-05:00

While catching up on the Amazon.com customer reviews for Tom Wong's Salesforce.com for Dummies, I see that another Salesforce.com book is on the horizon: Salesforce.com: The Official Guide. Given the "official" moniker, I wonder if Salesforce is behind this one?

According to Amazon, the book will be published in April.

Slow search and indexing?

2005-02-10T19:57:00.000-05:00

Received this note from Salesforce today, haven't heard any complaints from our users.

Some of our customers have been experiencing slower than normal search and indexing lately. We anticipated the effects of the limits that we are currently experiencing and are now in the final phases of implementing a new search architecture that we believe will be a substantial improvement for all users. Customers will enjoy faster searches with no single points of failure. Longer term, we are working on enhancements to our code which will increase the sophistication of our search capabilities. We have also installed additional capacity resources to help alleviate delays.

While prompt deployment is a top priority for our new search architecture, so is testing and quality assurance, which we are conducting right now. We expect new search to be completely rolled during the first quarter. The initial tests have been extremely positive, so we expect full implementation to take place much sooner than that. We remain committed to your success and apologize for any inconvenience you have experienced.

Blog-o-licious

2005-02-10T19:39:00.000-05:00

More blog talk -- Salesforce.com has launched a self-described "Daily Best Practice" blog, called "The Idea Bin".

Just a couple months old, but lots of good info in there. I really like yesterday's post about creating a customized search HTML component for your users homepage.

Subscribed!

Dreamforce Blogs

2005-02-10T19:20:00.000-05:00

Looks like Salesforce will be creating blogs for each Dreamforce User Group. And, using TypePad.... nice!

The first group is meeting in Houston, TX on February 15th. Here is the blog: http://dreamforce.blogs.com/houston/.

Looks like Dallas is set up as well: http://dreamforce.blogs.com/dallas/.

Clearance So, VP & GM of the Dreamforce User & Developer Community, appears to be behind the blogs currently.

Salesforce.com Foundation Sponsored Film

2005-02-09T23:30:00.000-05:00

The Salesforce.com foundation announced today that a film partially funded by the foundation was awarded a Special Jury Prize at the 2005 Sundance Film Festival. The funding was made via a grant to New York's Downtown Community Television Center.

The film, "Bullets in the Hood - A Bed-Stuy Story" is a short documentary directed and produced by two teen filmakers from the Bedford-Stuyvesant section of Brooklyn.

CRM Success Tour vs Dreamforce User Groups

2005-02-09T21:29:00.000-05:00

Ok, here's the scoop (in case you were confused.... as I was):

In select cities, both the CRM Success Tour and the Dreamforce User Group meeting will be taking place at the SAME time, in the SAME location. With both groups ending with the "networking" portion of the program (read: liquor).

Based on a conversation with our CSM, the CRM Success Tour is geared for Salesforce.com prospects, while the Dreamforce User Group is for existing Salesforce.com customers.

So there you go. I need to change my reservation now.....

Webcast: Merrill Lynch Computer Services & Software Conference

2005-02-08T21:07:00.000-05:00

As mentioned in an earlier post, the Merrill Lynch Computer Services & Software Conference is tomorrow, February 9th.

Steve Cakebread, Salesforce.com CFO will be presenting at 8:45am & 9:45am PST. You can find the live webcast here.

Lunch with Marc Benioff

2005-02-07T23:10:00.000-05:00

Bid on eBay now to have a one-hour lunch with the SalesForce.com CEO & Chairman.

The auction benefits the non-profit organization, "Communities in Schools". They have about a dozen or so other lunch auctions up for grabs with folks like actor John Cusack and Chris Matthews of Hardball.

The winner gets a one-hour lunch with Benioff in San Francisco and has to undergo a background check prior to the event!

Dreamforce User Groups

2005-02-07T21:13:00.000-05:00

So, it looks like Salesforce is piggybacking the CRM Success Tour with local user groups dubbed, "Dreamforce User Groups" in select cities.

If you attend, you can get $200 off an Administrator Workshop. And, if you play your cards right, maybe you'll get a free fleece or free copy of Salesforce.com for Dummies.

Charlotte, Cincinnati, Seattle, Minneapolis

2005-02-04T23:45:00.000-05:00

Salesforce will be hosting Dreamforce Club Events in the four cities above in the next two months.

More details on the Salesforce.com events page.

2/16 - Charlotte: Arpa Tapas, Wine Bar and Grill
2/23 - Cincinnati: Bistro 1020
2/23 - Seattle: See Sound Lounge
3/2 - Minneapolis: Nochee

Sforce Explorer in Pictures

2005-02-04T23:01:00.000-05:00

Benji Jasik, Sforce Product Manager, was kind enough to respond to my previous post about the sforce explorer.

He sent a handful of screenshots which I'll link to below (they are too large to include directly in this post.

For those who aren't familiar with the sforce explorer, it's a developer tool you can use to browse your Salesforce.com data model, test SOQL & SOSL queries, check the SOAP messages moving between the client and Salesforce. Best of all, it's open source!

The first shot displays list of entities you can query (Screenshot).

Second shot is the result of an SOQL query (Screenshot).

Third shot is a SOAP message (Screenshot).

The last shot shows the inline data editor (Screenshot).

Thanks again Benji for the information.

Larry Ellison, NetSuite, SalesForce.com, Inc. Magazine

2005-02-03T22:08:00.000-05:00

The February 2005 issue of Inc. Magazine includes an article called, "Larry's Kids". The article highlights alot of what many already know about Mr. Oracle, particularly regarding his financial interest in NetSuite and SalesForce.com, but it's worth a read.

Program for Microsoft Office Developers Launched Today

2005-02-02T21:15:00.000-05:00

The "Sforce Developer Program for Microsoft Office", launched today by Salesforce.com, includes free tools and technical infromation targeted at Microsoft Office developers.

"Developers get access to free tools and resources to help them create solutions to integrate key sales, marketing, and support information directly into Microsoft Office productivity applications."

The tools include an Sforce Toolkit for Office, Visual Studio Tools and a .Net COM Add-in.

The launch conincided with the Microsoft Office Developer's Conference taking place in Redmond from February 2nd - February 4th.

Salesforce.com CFO Presenting at Merrill Lynch Conference

2005-02-02T19:39:00.000-05:00

Steve Cakebread, Salesforce.com CFO, wll be participating in two sessions at the Merrill Lynch Computer Services & Software CEO Conference next Wednesday, Febrauary 9th.

The conference is taking place at the "luxurious" Fairmont Miramar Hotel in Santa Monica, California. It appears that the Fairmont offers high-speed internet access in the rooms (wired) as well as wireless access in public areas like lobbies and lounges. While lowly plebes will have to pay, Fairmont Gold rooms as well as Fairmont President's Club Premier and Platinum members get to surf the web in all its high speed glory for no charge.

An audio webcast of both sessions will be available on Salesforce.com's website at: http://www.salesforce.com/investor.

Here's a link to the agenda in PDF format from Merrill's website. Looks like Steve is in some pretty good company. Personally, I'd be looking forward to the surfside chats!

Fiscal Fourth Quarter Earnings

2005-02-01T19:53:00.000-05:00

Salesforce announced today that their fourth quarter fiscal year 2005 results will be released on Thursday, February 17th after market close.

There will be a conference call at 5pm (EST) to discuss the results with the investment community and a live web broadcast will be available at http://www.salesforce.com/investor.

New Forrester Research Report

2005-01-31T21:33:00.000-05:00

Today Forrester Research has made a new report available, "Scorecard Summary: Salesforce.com Enterprise Edition".

Written by Forrester Associate Analyst Liz Herber, the $399.00, 5 page report presents "key findings from Forrester's Hosted Sales Force Automation TechRankings^TM".

Perhaps you'll find this useful to sell Executive Management on the software-as-service concept - or maybe you could just sign-up for a free Salesforce.com developer account, spend 2 hours customizing it and present a customized demo?

Update (2/4): CIO Today offers a bit more insight into the report.

Sforce News

2005-01-31T21:09:00.000-05:00

I received the monthly(?) Sforce email newsletter today.

They highlighted a couple code samples from the Sforce blog, as well as pointing to an updated Sforce Explorer available for download. This is the first time I've seen the Explorer, unfortunately, it won't make it out past the corporate firewall and since, I've got a PowerBook at home, it's a no go there as well.

Anyone have some screenshots?

Jobs at Salesforce.com

2005-01-28T19:50:00.000-05:00

In case you haven't noticed, over in the right sidebar I link to any Salesforce.com jobs I come across on the San Francisco edition of CraigsList.org. Just added 5 today.

In other housekeeping news, you can also subcribe to SalesForceWatch.com in your favorite RSS reader by using one of the links at the bottom of the right sidebar.

And last but not least, feel free to send me any news, tips, gossip about SalesForce.com or any of its competitors for that matter to: mark[at]salesforcewatch[dot]com!

Oh, and if your company is looking for a SalesForce.com administrator, let me know, I'd be happy to post it.

Slow News Day

2005-01-28T19:40:00.000-05:00

Apparently, Thursday was a slow news day in the Salesforce.com public communications department. Feel free to read the releases below to find out who recently went "on-demand"!

Keystone Helicopter Lifts Off With Salesforce.com and Supportforce.com On-Demand Applications

Orrtax Selects Salesforce.com over Siebel to Maxmize Sales Productivity and Guide Sales Management Decisions

ClearCube Implements Salesforce.com Worldwide

PS: I purchased Melitta coffee yesterday, press release not yet available.

Enough with the awards already......

2005-01-26T21:12:00.000-05:00

TechTarget's SearchCRM.com named the SalesForce.com Summer '04 edition the 2004 Sales Force Automation Product of the Year.

"Salesforce.com received the highest possible marks for ease of integration, functionality and performance..."

Time for Benioff to make more room on his mantle.

SalesForce.com 2005 Codie Award Finalist

2005-01-26T20:50:00.000-05:00

The Software & Information Industry Association has named SalesForce.com a finalist for the 2005 Codie Awards for Best Customer Relationship Management Solution, Best Software Service, and Best Application Management Solution.

Just as the Philadelphia Eagles made their fourth consecutive NFC Championship game appearance this year, this is the fourth consecutive year that SalesForce.com has been nominated for the Best CRM Solution; they've won the award in 2002, 2003 and 2004.

Established in 1986, the Codie Awards are the longest-running awards program in the software and information industry.

Read the press release.

New version of Sforce Excel Connector available

2005-01-25T22:53:00.000-05:00

Ron Hess has released the latest version of his FREE Sforce Excel Connector, version 5.31.

He has highlighted several new features that may be of interest:

Option Dialog to configure the ServerURL, ( allows you to default to 5.0)

Option to trigger assignment rules for Lead and Case insert

Option to use API Names not labels

New feature in a query filter allows you to use TODAY , TODAY - n or TODAY + n, handy for pulling a window of data

A method or three of building a simple Join between two or more tables is described in the online help file

Added mapping for record types and owner ID's that will now display the names instead of the actual ID's

This tool continues to be a great help for SalesForce.com administrators in managing the day-to-day use of the application without getting under the hood of the Sforce API. Download it now!

UPDATE: Bay Area Users Group Meeting Cancelled

2005-01-25T22:46:00.000-05:00

Over on the official SalesForce.com message board, Pete "Fifedog" has just notified users that his Bay Area Users Group meeting originally scheduled for January 27th in Emeryville, CA has been cancelled in favor of the Dreamforce Local User Group in Santa Clara on March 10th.

Extend SalesForce.com Wirelessly to Palm and PocketPC

2005-01-24T20:06:00.000-05:00

Good Technology, Inc., a wireless handheld software and service provider announced all kinds of partnerships today (SalesForce.com, Siebel, Oracle, Visa) to extend enterprise applications to mobile users.

Their GoodAccess(tm) platform for Palm and PocketPC bring SalesForce.com to your mobile salesforce. Using the Good Access Certified(tm) Above All Studio, companies can create custom solutions that integrate with their SalesForce.com implementation via the sforce web servicess platform.

Check out the press release for more marketing speak.

2005 CRM Success Tour

2005-01-24T19:29:00.000-05:00

Just got an email from SalesForce.com today announcing something they are calling the 2005 CRM Success Tour.

Information in the email is brief but looks like the agenda will focus on customer testimonials, highlights of the Winter release and a Q&A session, followed, of course, by a "networking reception".

The first stop is Stockholm on February 10th. As soon as I track the info down on their site, I'll link to it.

Update: Here's the link.

Update: Calculated Fields

2005-01-23T14:55:00.000-05:00

Eric Bezar, Senior Product Manager of Customforce posted a follow-up to my calculated field post over on the CRMSuccess forums.

While he is unable to provide an exact release date, he does indicate that it is a high priority for Customforce in 2005. Good news!

SalesForce Free Web Seminar - Mobile SalesForce

2005-01-23T14:04:00.000-05:00

If you're considering deploying a mobile solution to your sales team you may be interested in SalesForce.com's next free web seminar on February 1st - Mobilize Your Sales Force: SalesForce.com and Vettro on BlackBerry.

The seminar is presented by John O'Shea, IT Director of Paraco Gas (who successfully implemented Vettro's Rainmaker solution) and Chuck Dietrich, Director of Business Development at SalesForce.com.

You can register here.

Sforce + Applescript?

2005-01-23T13:22:00.000-05:00

A while back I posted a message on the Sforce forums hoping someone had put together a sample Applescript implementation of Sforce. No takers back then..... how about now?

Supportforce.com 2004 Product of the Year

2005-01-22T18:57:00.000-05:00

Salesforce.com's SupportForce.com was named 2004 Product of the Year by Customer Inter@ction Solutions magazine.

Benioff to be Honored at Demo@15! Conference

2005-01-22T11:10:00.000-05:00

As part of this year's DEMO Conference -- named this year, DEMO@15! in celebration of 15 years of identifying emerging technology trends -- 15 top innovators who defined the best products and technologies of the last 15 years will be honored at a special dinner.

Some of the innovators sharing the spotlight with Benioff include:

Marc Andreessen, Chairman, Opsware, for his early browser product at Netscape...

Mena and Ben Trott, Co-Founders, Six Apart, for making blogging accessible, affordable and powerful...

Mike Ramsay, Chairman ~~& CEO~~, Tivo Inc., for fundamentally altering how we consume mass media...

Sergey Brin and Larry Page, Co-Founders & Presidents, Google, demonstrating that smart, fresh innovation can disrupt a market...

SalesForce.com Response to Siebel Verticals

2005-01-20T23:06:00.000-05:00

SalesForce.com's response to the Siebel OnDemand vertical-specific versions is summed up in this Flash piece, currently on their homepage.

Update: Here's another one that's been around for awhile.

Hosted CRM price war?

2005-01-19T20:11:00.000-05:00

Doubtful.

For the next two months, SalesForce.com rival, NetSuite, is offering a 50% discount on SalesForce.com's current subscription prices. The offer is available for customers who sign a NetSuite contract by March 31st. Existing SalesForce.com customers can receive 50% off their renewal and free data migration services.

Benioff doesn't seemed to be worried, calling the offer "another act of desperation".

OnDemand CRM, check. Future of the free world, check.

2005-01-18T22:18:00.000-05:00

According to this press release, Marc Benioff is one of 237 "under-40 leaders" asked to take part in The Forum of Young Global Leaders, a group working closely with the World Economic Forum.

According to the Queen of Jordan, "Rising leaders of today need to forge viable partnerships to spearhead a process of change." She continues, "The Forum of Young Global Leaders will activate a network of insightful, innovative and energetic young people whose vision and dynamism can usher a future of hope, progress and positive change."

ChangeTheWorldForce.com???

Dummies now on eBay....

2005-01-18T22:04:00.000-05:00

That was fast - SalesForce.com for Dummies was published yesterday. An outfit called a1books.com already has 50 copies for sale on eBay at a Buy-It-Now price of $14.00.

The perfect gift for your Sales team.

Sub-menu editing

2005-01-18T20:04:00.000-05:00

One thing that's bugged me is the inability to edit the submenu under the main SalesForce.com tabs. If you have several tabs hidden, your users will still see, "New [hidden tab name here]". This, of course, can be very confusing to users.

Dave "DevAngel", over on the sforce forums indicates that SalesForce is working on an update in a future release - hopefully we'll see it this year.

Using SalesForce.com in the Nonprofit Sector

2005-01-17T21:18:00.000-05:00

As part of its corporate philanthropy, SalesForce.com offers a free 10-user license to qualified non-profits.

Sonny at the Vermont Nonprofit CommunIT, writes about his experience searching for a donor management system. At the time of his post, he was testing out a 30-day test drive of SalesForce.com Professional Edition. He is also working with Clearport.org, a self-described charitable systems integrator to implement a non-profit template for SalesForce.com.

I've written to Sonny to see if a follow-up post is in the works. If so, I'll post here. Anyone else working with/using the Clearport.org non-profit SalesForce.com template?

What type of CRM user are you?

2005-01-17T13:29:00.000-05:00

Dave, at B2Blog, writes about 4 different types of people using their recently implemented Goldmine CRM application:

Power-user: One who wants to make the most of the tool they've been given and are willing to explore its capabilities.
Power-ignorant: Those who use the software, but aren't aware how the software is there to benefit them and make their lives earlier.
Power-less: Those who simply don't understand what to do,
Power-trip: One who understands the software and its capability but takes short-cuts or does it the old way.

Could easily apply to any CRM, including SalesForce.com. If you are not using the CRMSuccess Best Practice Center, you should be.
[Hat tip: Marketing Playbook]

$2,500 fleece

2005-01-14T23:23:00.000-05:00

Only one-week left to register for the SalesForce.com Administrator Workshop to receive your FREE Patagonia SalesForce.com fleece pullover.

PS: The workshop is $2,500. A fleece costs $12.99.

Calculated fields

2005-01-13T20:58:00.000-05:00

While it seems that calculated fields are on the SalesForce.com 2005 roadmap, this post from Dave ("DevAngel") on the sforce forums provides a method to create a calculated field using an scontrol.

Bay Area Users Group Meeting

2005-01-12T21:59:00.000-05:00

Pete "Fifedog", the moderator of the official SalesForce.com user forum, is hosting the first SalesForce.com user group meeting in Emeryville, CA on January 27th from 7pm to 9pm.

Here is the registration form and, if you are a SalesForce customer, read his post at CRMSuccess.com.

New sample JSP apps

2005-01-12T21:40:00.000-05:00

Two JSP demo applications are now available on the sforce sandbox -- a web2lead application and a lead qualification application.

SalesForce.com reports 82 percent rise in revenue

2005-01-12T21:22:00.000-05:00

SalesForce.com reported an 82 percent rise in quarterly revenue today, expects growth rate to slow over next year. Earnings per share were 2 cents for the quarter compared to 4 cents for the same period last year.

SalesForce shares fell 5.5 percent to $19.70 in after-hours trading.

Read the earnings press release

Siebel OnDemand Update

2005-01-12T20:49:00.000-05:00

Siebel launched version 6 of its OnDemand hosted CRM application yesterday. The highlight of this release is the launch of four vertical-specific versions of OnDemand for Wealth Management/Insurance, High Tech, Life Sciences/Medical and Automotive -- a shot right at SalesForce.com's CustomForce.com.

When asked about the challenge, SalesForce.com CEO Marc Benioff suggested an eWEEK Labs shootout.

Read eWEEK article

Insider Transactions

2005-01-11T00:03:00.000-05:00

SalesForce.com insider transaction history, courtesy of Yahoo! Finance.

Chicago, Boston, Atlanta

2005-01-10T23:47:00.000-05:00

SalesForce is sponsoring three networking events in those cities next week. Check out the SalesForce.com events page for more information.

Looks like they've secured some pretty nice restaurants for these events (links to Trip Advisor):

Chicago: Narcisse
Boston: 33 Restaurant & Lounge
Atlanta: Joel Antunes Restaurant

Enjoy!

UPDATE: Los Angeles added

Dummies!

2005-01-10T23:32:00.000-05:00

Tom Wong, formerly of Theikos - a SalesForce.com partner -- has just written "SalesForce.com for Dummies". The book will be published on January 17, 2005. You can check out Tom's bio on the Dummies.com site.

Use ISBN.nu to find the best price and track the launch.

Sforce has a blog!

2005-01-08T13:34:00.000-05:00

Digging through the Sforce forums, came across this blog.

The most recent post highlights a sample Perl to email SalesForce.com integration.

Unfortuantely, updates appear to be few and far between. Let me know if you come across any other SalesForce.com blogs.

SalesForce.com comes out on top

2005-01-07T12:59:00.000-05:00

Infoworld reporter James Borck puts four hosted-CRM solutions to the test. SalesForce.com rated, "excellent" ahead of NetSuite 10, RightNow CRM 7.0 and Salesnet Extended Edition. Borck gives props to SalesForce for their ease-of-use, administration capabilities and extensibility.

Read the article

SalesForce.com Foundation Tsunami Relief Fund

2005-01-06T13:26:00.000-05:00

The SalesForce.com Foundation is matching the first $250,000 received in donations for the tsunami relief effort.