2011 Say Bye-bye!
Every year around this time I write two columns one on the year that was and another on what I expect the new year to bring. There is no methodology for this process and I believe this lack of method is important. I take a blank screen and fill it up with what has been [...]
Our Work is Done Here, Right?
The recently concluded Dreamforce conference in San Francisco might have been the most successful CRM conference ever. That’s not hyperbole. I have been at some major events in the last ten years that rival this year’s Dreamforce. For instance, whenever Siebel had a user conference that was also major. But a lot has happened since [...]
Some Economic Consequences of Dreamforce
It’s worthwhile to consider the economic consequences of Dreamforce — the products announced as well as the cultural issues it raised. Now, I am not an economist and I encourage you to think about that and maybe not read this if that matters. Many people might look at the news coming out of San Francisco [...]
Converging on the Social Enterprise
I was in San Francisco last week for Dreamforce, the yearly confab for Salesforce that has had a major focus on social business the last couple of years. There’s little doubt that Marc Benioff clearly sees the very near future of business, and it’s something he calls the social enterprise. While you can read my [...]
Salesforce.com Dreamforce 2011: Some insights from The Greatest (Cloud Computing) Show on Earth!
Ringling Brothers bills itself as “The Greatest Show on Earth,” but Salesforce.com’s Dreamforce 2011 could easily claim the title of “The Greatest Cloud Computing Show on Earth.” With over 40,000 attendees, dozens of exhibitors, great concerts and parties, and presentations galore, the event was an unqualified success for Salesforce.com, but it also heralded a real [...]
A Social Baptism for the Enterprise. Hallelujah and Amen.
About this time last month, I was undergoing a crisis of faith. Faith in what brought me to this space: the promise of what the next generation web could be and could do to change business as we know it, as well as society at large. My faith was shaken by a few ripples [...]
Dreamforce 2011, the Recap
The multitude of clouds floating around on light poles, buses, and buildings in San Francisco are coming down and the sounds of Metallica have stopped echoing in the streets as people (over 40,000 of them) flock to the Bay Areas’…
Eric Schmidt and Marc Benioff
Necessity is the mother of invention and last year when Bill Clinton was late for the closing keynote, Marc may have discovered an ideal medium for closing out Dreamforce. This year he perfected it. I don’t know if Clinton was scheduled to give a conventional speech last year or a sit down interview I only [...]
Data, Here and There
One of the more announcements Marc Benioff off made in his Day 1 Keynote was database.com. The news is that Salesforce is now enabling its customers to store their data on their own hardware inside their data centers. There is a need or at least a demand for this capability as many large enterprises and [...]
B2C Social Today, B2B Tomorrow?
Salesforce has been hammering the social enterprise message all day and will continue to do so for a long time. It’s a good message and it dovetails with the subscription economy as the one-two punch for new fangled company organization. That means everyone, not just new companies, but all companies will be attracted to social [...]
