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SINGAPORE
JULY 14, 2006
"A virtual Silicon Valley is in the making," stated Marc Benioff,
chairman & CEO, SalesForce.com.
Benioff is the man who is leading the "virtual Silicon Valley
movement" from the front. His company SalesForce.com provides a platform
AppExchange, which can be used by developers across the world to create their
own applications without incurring huge cost of buying the platform for
application development.
The company under Benioff's leadership has recognized the wave in time.
"This is an idea whose time has come," said Benioff.
He was addressing the audience at the iDA Distinguished Speakers Series here.
It is the Web 2.0. "Just imagine you don't need to incur a high total
cost of ownership in buying the software and installing it. The era of software
as we know it has ended," said Benioff. He elaborated that the future is
"On Demand" software with just about any application available off the
web in real time.
The movement from "Consumer Web" to "Business Web" is
picking up steam and there are converts willing to give Microsoft the
"boo". It is decidedly not an SMB phenomenon, Benioff said, counting
Cisco as one of its largest converts.
The "Business Web" is changing the way software is distributed. The
"On Demand" plug-in software is quick-and-easy to deploy, highly
economical and allows meta-customization flexibility. It is available as and
when you want it for a subscription fee and the user can customize it to fit the
organization needs.
In 2005, reportedly, Mircosoft sat up, took notice of SalesForce.com and
other companies like it and actually revised its strategy to offer software as a
service and is now offering windows live. This was said to be Microsoft's
major strategy revision in the last five years.
However, small players with zero legacy baggage have moved faster and you
have a number of such players comprising the Business Web. Just like the
"Consumer Web" comprising Amazon and eBay the Business Web allows a
developer to create and publish applications on ISV standards and then run,
integrate and deliver these everywhere in a secure and scalable environment.
Giving a sneak peek into the potential of the Business Web, Benioff
demonstrated "Mash-ups" - two independent web services get integrated
to form a third independent service.
SalesForce.com has collaborated with Google under its early access to code
program and demonstrated how Google Maps and SalesForce.com talk to each other
and publish a third applications which maps SalesForce.com offices at various
geographic locations and presents the information in a easy-to-absorb visual.
This is just one of the possibilities.
The company is getting aggressive in reaching out to the Asia Pacific region.
On the agenda, later this year, is establishing presence in India in Bangalore.
(SalesForce.com hosted the author in Singapore)
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