Mark Smith's Analyst Perspectives

Salesforce.com looking for a Successful Rypple in Human Capital Management

Posted by Mark Smith on Dec 20, 2011 12:51:51 PM

Salesforce.com made a surprising announcement of its agreement to acquire Rypple, a software company that defines its product as a social goals application. I call this a surprise because although Salesforce has been extending its reach beyond sales and customer service to IT in providing a platform, tools and a database for building applications and storing data in the cloud, until now it has not entered directly into other lines of business. After its annual Dreamforce conference last summer, I analyzed the company’s strategy and products. Now I want to consider what this acquisition means for Salesforce and the human capital management market.

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Topics: Salesforce.com, SAP, Human Capital Management, Marketing, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Business Technology, Chatter, CIO, Cloud Computing, Information Management, Oracle, Business Applications, Business Performance Management (BPM), CFO, COO, CRM, HR, Sales Performance Management (SPM), SalesCloud, Service Cloud, SFA, Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM), Talent Management, Workforce Performance Management (WPM), Digital Technology

Salesforce Presents New Social Enterprise with Chatter, Mobility and Data

Posted by Mark Smith on Sep 2, 2011 12:45:50 PM

At the Dreamforce conference, Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff unveiled the latest evolution of the company’s strategy and supporting technology for cloud computing and mobile technologies. Its aim is to enable businesses to engage with customers and prospects via social media channels – what Salesforce calls the “social enterprise” – and empower employee and customer social networks to operate individually and together. Note I did not mention CRM, which doesn’t have a role in this platform for basic interactions with prospects and customers and is accompanied by a large ecosystem of partners that provide dedicated marketing and contact center applications. As summarized in its announcement, Salesforce’s strategy is clearly different from that of others in the applications market, including Oracle and SAP, which have products for the cloud computing environment and have made strides into integrating collaboration and social media capabilities into their applications.

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Topics: Mobile, Sales, Salesforce.com, Social Media, Sustainability, Marketing, Operational Performance Management (OPM), Sales Cloud, Sales Force Automation, Business Analytics, Business Collaboration, Business Intelligence, Business Mobility, Chatter, Cloud Computing, Collaboration, Governance, Risk & Compliance (GRC), Location Intelligence, Operational Intelligence, Business Performance Management (BPM), CMO, CRM, Customer Performance Management (CPM), DF11, Financial Performance Management (FPM), Information Applications (IA), Information Management (IM), IT Performance Management (ITPM), Sales Performance Management, Sales Performance Management (SPM), Service Cloud, SFA, Supply Chain Performance Management (SCPM), Workforce Performance Management (WPM)