Salesforce.com is very proud of the fact that it is NOT software. In fact, the word “Software,” encircled by the red Ghostbusters circle and slash is its logo. But isn’t software a “good” thing? This leaves many people wondering… if it’s not software, then what is it?

Salesforce.com IS in fact a software application—it’s just not one that you buy or license. It’s one that you pay a fractional ongoing fee to use, also called “software-as-a-service,” or SaaS. This begs the question, why ‘rent’ software when you can just own it? It’s a good question, and one worth exploring further.

Cost:

Intricate software with lots of functionality costs a lot of money to develop. Teams of visionaries, programmers, project managers, database administrators, and countless others spend years developing some of the more complex software applications—hence the steep price. With SaaS, you pay monthly, quarterly, or yearly for the use of the software, and often only for the functionality that you use.

Updates:

Any good software will require updates. Times change, technology changes, and in the online world, this seems to happen at a very rapid pace. When you purchase software, you often get that version, and that’s it. You might get free or lower cost updates, but software companies would prefer to sell you the new version all over again. When using SaaS, you generally have access to updates because you are generally always plugged in to the latest version.

Speed:

SaaS applications are normally web based applications as opposed to those that you install on your computer or server. Web applications do tend to be a bit slower than desktop software and that can be annoying. Even with super high speed connections, there can be a bit of a lag.

Information ownership:

With any software, the functionality of the information is essentially tied to the tool itself. If you stop renting the Software-as-a-service, you lose the functionality of the data. You’ll likely be able to extract the data, but then will need to plug it in to some other software application should you decide to switch. The fact that the functionality of the information is dependent on the software is the same with any software that you may own; the difference is that you don’t continually pay monthly fees for the use of it though some software does include an annual licensing fee.

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Salesforce.com recently launched CampaignForce, a new type of CRM app designed specifically for politicians to manage their campaigns.  The new app gives campaign managers a slew of benefits including, a web based single point of access to campaign-related and a view of important info such as polls, fundraising progress, media buzz, etc.

If demand drives innovation, then it’s interesting to note that SalesForce.com, the leading CRM application that allows business to understand their client base in order to better address the needs of their customers, began offering services in 2000.   Now, 7 years later, enough demand has finally led to the launch of the same type of application for the political arena. 

Can CampaignForce do for politics what it has done for businesses?  Let’s hope so.  The intuitive information collection process and instant mashing up and comparative analysis of different types of data available through Salesforce has a tendency to really open the eyes of businesses about what their customers really want.  Information is easy to ignore when there is no real way of seeing it clearly and analyzing it effectively in real time. 

This is certainly the year for e-lections.  From the widely publicized Barack Obama fan video on You Tube depicting Hillary Clinton as on the classic 1984 big screen, to candidates creating profiles on social networking sites like MySpace and Facebook, to the launch of CampaignForce, the web is a major force in today’s campaigns. 

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Salesforce.com recently announced that it will be moving into the content management space.  Gartner.com says that this move is “evidence of the growing interest in basic content management delivered through the software-as-a-service model.”

So far, SalesForce has had succeeded either because of or despite its “software-as-a-service” (SaaS) model for their CRM application.  The question now is, will companies like the idea of SaaS for content management? 

What is Software as a Service?

To quote Wikipedia: 

Software as a service (SaaS) is a software application delivery model where a software vendor develops a web-native software application and hosts and operates (either independently or through a third-party) the application for use by its customers over the Internet… As a term, SaaS is generally associated with business software and is typically thought of as a low-cost way for businesses to obtain the same benefits of commercially licensed, internally operated software without the associated complexity and high initial cost.

The critical success factor of SaaS is embedded within Wikipedia’s definition.  SaaS is ideal when the cost of owning the software is steep.  Instead, use of the software becomes a service.  The downside is that your data is intricately bound to this the SaaS company.  Sure, data can be exported, but it instantly loses its functionality without the software platform.   

The question then is, can SalesForce.com create a content management system with so many perks, bells, and whistles that businesses will be willing to “rent” the software platform in which their content is stored as opposed to paying outright for software?

Time will tell!  If SalesForce proves as successful in the Content Management space as it has in the CRM space, the answer is a certain yes.  But as we know, the winds can change quickly in the technology game. 

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A lot of people come to us for Sales Force implementation solutions after trying to do it themselves without much luck. I mean, Sales Force seems like a simple enough CRM right? There are tons of tutorials, lots of documentation, a support line—what’s so difficult? That’s what most people think… and then they beat themselves up for not being able to get the seemingly “intuitive” CRM to react the way they envision.

If this sounds like you, don’t think you’re alone! Here’s a real story of a typical Sales Force integration.

The VP of customer service for a mid-sized internet start up company knows they need to do something to organize customer inquiries and has heard about CRMs. After doing some research, he decides on Sales Force.com and gets an annual budget of $24,000 approved to pay for it.

He has no idea how to implement it, but that’s ok, he’s just hired a new Operations Manager, and that will be her job. The Operations Manager knows zilch about Sales Force, but is pretty smart and can normally tackle technical challenges, so they assume everything will be fine.

Armed with copy of “SalesForce for Dummies” the new Operations Manager begins the long learning curve of setting up this new system for a new company. Between reading books and watching video tutorials, there were numerous calls to the Sales Force support line, during which the customer service department staff often overheard a profanity or two.

6 weeks later, the task was accomplished and it was time to test out the results in real time with the companies real customers. Here’s the story from the point of view of the Operations Manager:

“The rollout worked out ok, there were definitely glitches and there were a LOT of things that I kind of rigged up to work right… I found out later that there were more effective ways of doing some of the earlier tasks, but at that point there was no turning back. Oh! And scalability for other departments! I didn’t even think of that!

Once analytics and biz dev saw the cool graphs, they wanted to add user accounts. But because I hadn’t planned it for interdepartmental scalability, we had to do more work-arounds to separate the data. At some point I just felt that the entire CRM was a house of cards that could collapse at any moment. I mean, this was what was housing some of the company’s critical business data and it seemed like it could implode at any moment. Whenever someone from one department would add a user or a new functionality, I would just hold my breath… and that’s when we decided we needed some help!”

So if you’re hiding a dirty little secret about the potential instability of your CRM, rest assured that there are plenty of others out there just like you. It might be uncomfortable to ask for the budget to bring in CRM software experts, but it can be a lot more difficult to explain what happened to all of the company’s data! If anything, getting a second opinion about your architecture and having an xpert poke around for signs of potential future problems is a smart idea.

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One resource that many people are turning to now for customizable software solutions is open source software. Open Source is a software initiative in which the source code of software is made available to developers to freely work with and customize and is a good place to begin when looking for a platform upon which to build a customized piece of software.

This is cheaper for businesses, because they don’t have to pay to reinvent the entire wheel, just to make it work for their particular vehicle. However, customizing open source software requires a good deal of advanced programming and technical skill to get the product functioning in a customized manner.

Because developers throughout the years have tweaked and altered open source code to create different “customized” versions of software, it can be tempting to try and save a buck by using this “free” software and trying to make it work for your company.

However, keep in mind that you get what you pay for. The important thing to remember with open source software that people often overlook when obtaining and installing open source software themselves to try and save money, is the fact that there is no support team to handle inquiries.

If you want answers about why a particular piece isn’t functioning correctly or how to make the application react the way you envision, you probably won’t have access to the developer. Chances are you will have to find responses on support forums that answer the question of others who have posted problems similar to yours or pose a new question and wait for a response.

On the other hand, if you work with a custom software development company to mold the open source code into a software solution that perfectly suits your needs, you have more options. If you choose a company that offers support, maintenance, and a service guarantee, you won’t find yourself stuck with broken software or trying to figure out how to make these hundreds of lines of ‘free’ code to work for you.

Open source is a fantastic movement—but if you need customization or a support team, it’s essential to go through a custom software development company.

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