Facebook
Salesforce
New Developer Library Released
Today, Developer Force (http://developer.force.com) released its new library. Here are a few of them. All can be found at http://wiki.developerforce.com/index.php/Documentation.
Workbook
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/workbook/index.htm
Fundamentals
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/fundamentals/index.htm
Cookbook
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/cookbook/index.htm
Apex Advanced Code Example
http://www.salesforce.com/us/developer/docs/apexcode/Content/apex_shopping_cart_example.htm
https://sites.secure.force.com/appexchange/listingDetail?listingId=a0N30000001saDCEAY
And many more to come!
Dreamforce Keynote – Chatter and the Platform
There is no way to write one post to cover everything, so I want to address one thing that some people may not have noticed:
Salesforce Chatter is being pushed as a platform layer.
Looking at the “chiclet” slide that Marc Benioff unveiled, let’s start with the “old” slide:
Yes, this is not the exact slide, but getting a copy of the initial slide is proving difficult. We'll have to use this one from Dreamforce 2008 as a reference, and will need to imagine the rest.
- Notice that the bottom level is Infrastructure. This is the hardware that salesforce.com provides along with the promise that it will work properly. It is called Infrastructure as a Service, and there’s nothing new about that.
- On top of that is what we call the Force.com Platform. This includes Apex code, workflow, analytics, and Visualforce.
- And on top of that are the clouds: Service Cloud 2, Sales Cloud 2, and Custom Cloud.
However, the first new chiclet slide that Marc showed was misleading. The item with the big question mark was a cloud. And Chatter is not only a cloud.
Once Chatter was shown and demonstrated, the new chiclet slide did not just show it as a cloud. It was also shown as another platform layer. This is huge.
Chatter, clearly, is not just an application that sits on top of Salesforce CRM and the Force.com platform. (Examples of these are AppExchange apps like FinancialForce and even integration features like Google Docs for Salesforce.) Chatter is an integral part of the platform and will be a part of every customization. What does this mean? Just as with every custom object comes the ability to make Workflow and Validation Rules, with every custom object will come the ability to include Chatter features.
So let’s talk about the new slide. First, something negative:
From an IT perspective, we know that there are three levels to Software as a Service: Infrastructure as a Service, Platform as a Service, and Application as a Service. Where does Chatter fit in? I have no idea. In the Platform? No. Platform features are data-driven and can exist without a user-interface. In Infrastructure? Obviously not. So Chatter must be an Application. Obviously, salesforce.com is including Chatter as features in every application. But just because it is ubiquitous does not mean that it is a platform layer.
Now, something positive:
From a marketing perspective, nobody cares about the Service layers. Infrastructure? Platform? Application? All the people with money (CXOs) care about is what they’re going to get and what the product can do. If we look at the slide as a selling-tool, it’s perfect. It shows us features that are available across the board, in every object.
So my conclusion:
If I take off my developer hat, Chatter is a great feature that will help businesses run better. Sure, the slide is funny-looking, but it works.
Salesforce.com Releases “Chatter” – a first look
The keynote hasn’t even started and already there is a lot of chatter on twitter and the web about salesforce.com’s new offering: Salesforce Chatter.
In the Blog Pound, we were given books of Service Cloud success stories and chattering-teeth. The press packets were handed out, full of descriptions of Salesforce CRM’s new releases, all focused on the Service Cloud.
The biggest release is Salesforce Chatter, an enterprise collaboration – social computing mashup (http://www.salesforce.com/chatter – link inactive at posting time). It combines Content, Apps, and People in a secure environment within each company.
The features will include Profiles (user profiles like Facebook pages), Status Updates, Feeds (such as announcements when Salesforce Content files are updated or triggered announcements analogous to workflow emails/tasks), Groups (like CRM groups or Content workspaces), Social Apps (really just an RSS-type feature), Social Content (file sharing), Social Sharing (a euphemism for security model), and Twitter (referring more to the already-released Twitter integration features), Facebook (with auto-population from Facebook profiles), AppExchange (ISV partners can integrate App updates to a Chatter feed), and Mobile (allowing the Chatter features to travel).
Dreamforce 2009 Day 1: Prep
Good morning, all! As Dreamforce is this week, I’ll be sharing more frequently, updating after every major session and sharing code and config tips picked up during the conference. Salesforce.com was kind enough to give me a Blogger pass, so I may have access to some interesting news; I’ll be sure to share it here.
Last night was the Dreamforce 2009 Tweetup, organized by yours-truly and sponsored by Jon Mountjoy, Community Manager at Force.com and by Appirio, who has a booth in the Expo. A good time was had by all, as people who have only known each other via 140-character text snippets and cartoon-character avatars were able finally to meet.
The Salesforce Twitter community has evolved organically, coming into being without any intervention from salesforce.com, but the company has been quick to react, bringing many of its people into the Twittersphere under official Salesforce Twitter accounts such as @asksalesforce, @forcedotcom, and the like. This coincides with some super new offerings in the Service cloud over the past year (and to be announced at Dreamforce), and salesforce.com has said that one has fed into the other.
On a side note, kudos to salesforce.com for its responsiveness to its partner and customer communities, both via official (http://ideas.salesforce.com and http://www.salesforce.com/community) and unofficial (responding to blog posts and emails) channels.
Joining me in the press room are Jeff Grosse of www.crmfyi.com and www.salesforcechannel.com and John Rotenstein of www.theenforcer.net. We’re prepping for the press briefing, which starts shortly. We’ll all be sure to share what we learn as we learn it.
And to all the tweeters out there, don’t forget to use #df09 and #forcedotcom!
SugarCRM: Shenanigans!
This morning I was greeted by this email from SugarCRM (actually two emails):
Dear David
Marc Benioff has a few zingers for SugarCRM in his new book Behind the Cloud:
“We knew that we had truly emerged as the market leader in the eyes of the industry when we arrived at Dreamforce 2006 to find that a handful of employees from a small CRM company had set up a mock protest outside the convention center. I’m not really sure what they were protesting, and it was a small, low-budget, and poorly executed rip-off of the types of tactics we had invented, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that we knew not to get ruffled.” - Page 65 of Behind the Cloud by Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com.
SugarCRM is sorry they disappointed Marc during their first visit to Dreamforce in 2006. Marc even challenged them to “step up the innovation”:
“We did not want this company to get free PR on our coattails! Ignoring this escapade worked well. A blogger asked a Dreamforce attendee if she had seen what was going on outside when she arrived, and she replied that it must have been some kind of Salesforce.com stunt. (Note: if you are going to compete with someone at his or her own game, always remember to step up the innovation.)” - Page 65 of “Behind the Cloud” by Marc Benioff, Chairman and CEO of Salesforce.com
Marc was right. Game on.
In continuing its long love affair with the industry’s most down-to-earth CEO and its commitment to staging “small, low-budget, and poorly executed rip-off [tactics]”, SugarCRM is currently distributing 1,000 copies of “Behind the Smokescreen: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Still Manages to Sell 1999 technology 10 years later” at Dreamforce today.
With an endorsement from North Korean leader Kim Jong II (“A great guide for any entrepreneur, CEO, or Head of State looking to promote openness and freedom”), Behind the Smokescreen is a response to the magical Salesforce.com marketing that has transformed the company’s service from .com ASP to On-Demand SaaS to Cloud Computing without changing its architecture
[note: the version of this email from Chris Harrick of "The Sugar Team" says, "to Cloud Computing without being apple to run its service on Amazon EC2, Microsoft Azure or other cloud services." - Hey Chris, those are other platforms. Salesforce is NOT SUPPOSED TO RUN on those. But it could integrate quite well!]
You can read the full book here: www.sugarcrm.com/smokescreen.
To celebrate the release of the book, SugarCRM is offering a free data migration for Salesforce.com users through the end of the year. Registrants will have a chance to win a free Motorola Droid.
SugarCRM hopes that the publication of this book “step[s] up the innovation” in Marc’s eyes. Please let us know if you’d like to speak with someone from SugarCRM about this campaign.
Regards,
Lisa Holden on behalf of The SugarCRM Team
(415) 817-2509
lholden@schwartz-pr.com
I’m not sure what they’re trying to do, but they’re certainly not making it look like they’re worth my time. The Kim Jong Il joke is pathetic (though a deeper look at the text shows that it’s actually “Kim Jong II” – as in Kim Jong the Second) and there is at least one blatantly inflammatory remark:
Here’s a tip for SugarCRM: Salesforce CRM and the Force.com Platform are NOT SUPPOSED to run on Amazon SC2 nor Microsoft Azure!
To be fair, since Benioff is well-known for his demonstrations outside Oracle OpenWorld a few years ago (his own demonstration to which he alludes in his page 65 quote), SugarCRM’s tactic is understandable – but hopefully our Fearless Forceful Leader takes this more as a compliment (imitation and flattery and what-not) than an attack.
That’s all. No need to pick up a physical copy of the book – it’s available for download. In fact, I propose that someone host a copy on another site for download so that SugarCRM believes that far fewer people have downloaded the file.
Back to your regularly-scheduled Dreamforce programming.
