Dreamforce 2011 Monday
I am going to curate this story during my week in San Francisco to cover Dreamforce 2011 as well as the first Zuora User Group Meeting and the Cloud 9 User Meeting.
Sunday August 28
Weather is a factor for Dreamforce 2011. Lots of us are coming from the east coast and there is a hurricane heading up the coast. I WAS flying out on Sunday morning but changed my flight to Saturday at 6 am to try to miss the big winds.
Previewing Dreamforce
People keep calling me to ask what Salesforce is going to announce and Dreamforce. My standard answer is, how would I know? I get briefings like a lot of analysts but in a situation like this you usually have to promise to hold the news until the company makes its announcements.
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The Subscription Imperative Revisited
As often happens in evolutionary systems, availability precedes demand. That’s a complicated way to say that we build products then figure out what they’re good for. It’s not that innovators develop things willy-nilly, but no matter how well thought out an innovation is, the marketplace has the last word on its utility.
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There”s nothing wrong with a price war or offering a discount. I just find it strange that Microsoft — which has a good product in Dynamics CRM — leads with discounts. How do you make money that way?
I would love to see — and I don”t think this has ever happened — vendors try to compete on functionality, fitness for a purpose or something other than price for once. Leading with discounts needlessly cheapens your product and is akin to firing your last
bullet into the sky rather than taking aim.
Interestingly, I have not seen any posters or billboards with non-Salesforce messaging. Last year, Microsoft and Oracle both
had signs on the walls of buildings. So far it looks like Salesforce has bought up all the real estate.
Crude, but effective.
Speak Up