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Salesforce.com (NYSE:CRM) CEO Marc Benioff says enterprise software should be more like Facebook. Speaking at the Web 2.0 Summit, he said social media features are cruicial, but couldn't be goaded into more jabs at Larry Ellison. In IT Blogwatch, bloggers seem disappointed there weren't more fireworks.
Your humble blogwatcher curated these bloggy bits for your entertainment.
Clint Boulton reports:
Web 2.0 Summit Co-host Tim O'Reilly engaged...Benioff in a word association game, throwing out company names...and asking the CEO to say what came to mind. When O'Reilly said "Oracle," Benioff [said, "It's] a strong company because of all of the acquisitions they've made and they have a very good strategy.".
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Benioff cited Facebook, Amazon and eBay as examples of cloud computing enablers...sav[ing] his greatest praise for Facebook. ... He sees Facebook is setting the direction for where the enterprise application space is going. ... He noted that it's extremely relevant for his enterprise customers.
Fritz Nelson adds:
Benioff said it is a time of Enterprise Spring (alluding to the [Arab] Spring), where enterprise end users and corporate customers have a greater voice.
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[N]ever one to let an opportunity go by without a quick competitive shot, [he] took aim at virtualization companies...saying that cloud means multi-tenant application architectures, not just some virtual machine running in the data center.
Matt Rosoff homes in on sentiment analysis:
Most of the rest of the conversation focused on social networking...like how Netflix got so many negative comments...that it actually forced the company to go back and change its mind. Benioff...pointed out how much more quickly decisions must be made because of social media.
Rip Empson is on a tear:
Benioffs tone has definitely tempered somewhat since OpenWorld in relation to Ellison and Oracle...[but] Benioff has a big old man crush on Facebook. ... Id like to be doing as many amazing things as Facebook is, Benioff said
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Benioff is quick to say that the social revolution is coming to enterprise software. ... [C]ustomers across the board are on social networks, which is exactly where they should be interacting with them.
But Rachel King yawns:
Rehashing much of what Benioff has been arguing at Dreamforce 2011 and...[at] Oracle OpenWorld...Benioff reiterated that social, mobile, and cloud technologies [are] fueling the IT revolution.
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Benioff...[has] strong arguments for the importance of socializing the enterprise world, but [should] learn some patience as these kinds of revolutions cant always create change overnight.
