Salesforce Platform Reviews

Salesforce today announced ‘Salesforce Platform Mobile Services’, its response to the market opportunity around mobile application development. Salesforce Platform Mobile Services should smooth the development of mobile enterprise app creation and comes with support for analytics, secure access control (single-sign on based on Salesforce Identity) and other libraries of tools. As part of the ‘Mobile Services’ offering, Salesforce is rolling out a new Mobile SDK (availability announced for June) and what the company calls ‘Developer Mobile Packs’, an enriched set of Mobile APIs based on open source (ie popular JavaScript frameworks) that should enable developers to access real-time Salesforce data. -- Value & Differentiation -- PAC believes that the integration and access of real-time Salesforce data is a key benefit and strategic differentiator for the company against other emerging mobile application development environments (eg IBM, SAP, Oracle). The ecosystem and marketplace developed around the AppExchange platform gives Salesforce substantial competitive advantage. The company already has a very lively ecosystem of ISVs and developers building on its platform. So far, over threee million custom apps have been developed on the Salesforce Platform, a significant number irrespective of the level of depth of enterprise functionality put into these apps. This is particularly relevant as Salesforce’s app development environment is Cloud-native, giving it an extra advantage over other enterprise-grade mobile SDKs. -- Placement in Portfolio -- Salesforce Platform is not yet a monolithic platform, consisting of sub-branches like force.com, Heroku, database.com, AppExchange, etc. PAC learned that Salesforce Platform Mobile Services will be an extension of force.com. -- From Apex to Open Java? -- The emphasis on open source signals that Salesforce may gradually move away from Apex, its proprietary Java-based variant, towards a more open Java environment. The development activity seen on Heroku may influence the transition to open Java for force.com in the future. Out of the 3 million custom apps developed on Salesforce’s platforms, 2.7 million were developed on Heroku, and 360,000 on force.com. This may indicate that the odds may be in favor of open Java versus Apex in the long term. -- Mobile Apps vs Traditional Apps -- Of the 3 million custom apps built up to now on the Salesforce platform, it is not easy to quantify the proportion of mobile apps. Salesforce used to look at this market in a holistic manner, partly because many apps have been developed for multiple-device / universal environments. The ‘Mobile Services’ offering should help Salesforce differentiate between mobile apps development and traditional application development, as mobile and non-mobile application experiences will diverge more and more. -- Pricing -- It is still an early stage for ‘Salesforce Platform Mobile Services’ and not all of its parameters have been clearly set. Interesting questions arise as to how/if the company will monetize mobile application development (e.g. would it charge for app development as in Heroku’s PaaS environment) and what revenue opportunities could Salesforce derive from ‘Mobile Services’ (e.g., charging for development and integration, charging for hosting and secure mobile app control/ management, etc). -- Channel & Services -- In order to get traction in the Consulting & Integration arena, Salesforce plans to support adoption of ‘Mobile Services’ with a dedicated training program for the channel. The program already features some of the strongest names in the SI space like Accenture, Capgemini and Deloitte. With such partners on board, Salesforce’s credentials in mobile app development should be reinforced with large enterprise clients. In addition, as these providers have a global presence, the message should get through in all relevant geographies.

When Cloud Sherpas helps a customer move to the cloud, we usually see the customer move in phases. Recently, we’ve observed a growing trend among enterprise companies, who — having seen positive results from an initial cloud implementation — give us a call a few months later, eager for advice on which areas of their business landscape to address next.

We hear questions like…

• We’ve moved much of our Sales & Marketing functions to the cloud. Which other areas of our business should we now move to the cloud?
• I have a long tail of apps to deliver this year. Which ones will best leverage the strengths of the force.com platform?
• Our employees are demanding better mobile access and the ability to much more easily collaborate at work. How can we support them?

As a Platinum Salesforce.com partner and the world’s leading Google apps cloud service provider, we work with two of the biggest heavyweights in both business and cloud computing.

The article that follows focuses on Cloud Sherpas’ capabilities related to Salesforce.com, where many of our customers — and businesses, generally — begin their cloud journeys.

Like many members of our industry, I think it’s safe to assume that Sales Cloud and Service Cloud — Salesforce.com’s core CRM and Customer Service offerings, respectively — combined, serve as the gateway for many businesses to an even more extensive presence in the cloud.

Force.com, the world’s leading cloud platform for business apps, offers the infrastructure upon which both Sales Cloud and Service Cloud are built, and if you happen to be using either solution, Force.com may be the next logical destination on your company’s journey further into the cloud.

Force.com hosts more than 200,000 business applications from both Salesforce.com partners and independent software vendors.

For larger organizations ready to ‘make the migration,’ the smartest strategy is often to begin by first buffering inflexible legacy applications with a layer of dynamic cloud solutions that facilitate a more agile and collaborative business process than would be possible using a non-cloud-based solution. These ‘Volatile Applications,’ as they are sometimes referred to, give both users and ISVs the ability to adapt, scale and evolve quickly — a key selling point for building and hosting applications on the force.com platform.

Listed below are the four “sweet spots” we’ve seen for businesses using the force.com platform:

1. Sharing new or existing information with a wider audience

Force.com’s single platform and granular access control can be used to rapidly provide access to multiple user groups. Businesses can customize the level of access granted to any number of user types, allowing customers to self-serve by provisioning access to a comprehensive knowledge base, for example, while dedicating other areas of their solution to sales and service information accessible only to key partners and vendors.

2. Anything that needs to be mobile or collaborative

All apps that are built on Force.com have built-in features that leverage Chatter — salesforce.com’s cross-platform compatible enterprise collaboration tool —  and are thus available on most popular mobile devices.

3. Managing user-driven business processes

Process-oriented apps are a popular use case for force.com apps, as they leverage the business service layer of the force platform with workflow, approvals and custom code. Typical apps have covered Recruiting, Bug Tracking, Expense Management and Procurement.

4. Rebuilding simple ‘desktop’ apps

Force.com’s secure, reliable and scalable infrastructure allows for a much more organic approach to product lifecycle management. Unencumbered by native, platform-specific development requirements, businesses can leverage Force.com’s flexible Web-based platform to build — and build onto — any application. For example, say you and a few team members create a simple software application that serves as little more than a project discussion board but quickly grows into a central database for resources that would logically be available to all employees. In this scenario, on Force.com, it wouldn’t take much to take what started as just a spreadsheet and turn it into a robust, enterprise-ready, collaborative application for the whole organisation.

These are just a few highlights of the types of apps we see businesses creating with the  force.com platform.

Where have you found a sweet spot for the force.com platform?

Disclosure: The company I work for is partners with several vendors including Salesforce

What is most valuable?

What needs improvement?

For how long have I used the solution?

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

How are customer service and technical support?

Which solution did I use previously and why did I switch?

How was the initial setup?

What about the implementation team?

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

What other advice do I have?

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

What is our primary use case?

What is most valuable?

What needs improvement?

For how long have I used the solution?

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

How are customer service and technical support?

What other advice do I have?

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?

What is our primary use case?

What is most valuable?

What needs improvement?

For how long have I used the solution?

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

What do I think about the scalability of the solution?

How are customer service and technical support?

How was the initial setup?

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

What other advice do I have?

What is our primary use case?

What is most valuable?

For how long have I used the solution?

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

How was the initial setup?

What about the implementation team?

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

What other advice do I have?

What is most valuable?

What needs improvement?

For how long have I used the solution?

What do I think about the stability of the solution?

How are customer service and technical support?

How was the initial setup?

What about the implementation team?

What's my experience with pricing, setup cost, and licensing?

What other advice do I have?

Which deployment model are you using for this solution?