Advertisment

They still talk years, we talk today

author-image
DQI Bureau
New Update

Whats your take on commoditization, now that every player from big to

small start-ups is jumping on the SaaS bandwagon?



For one, it makes the technology more visible. But we are not here to

compete for free. We have been and would always be a customer-grade product. No

free lunches for sure. We give a business tool and that too for excellent value.

Its only cheaper.

Advertisment

How do you view the growing attempts of traditional proprietary software

and ERP players to make themselves relevant in the SaaS market with cloud

offerings?



All of them claim to be enhancing their portfolio with service-based

offerings. But look at the time line they promise. I just heard Microsoft head

honchos vision of making strides in this market. The problem is a time-horizon

like three years is too long. It astounds me to think that other players can

think of affording a timeline like that. Thats eccentric.

At Salesforce, we have a 12 quarter year and we come with three substantial

upgrades every year. Every upgrade is meaningful, and not just for the sake of

it. We maintain almost 100 new features per upgrade and at the same time make

sure it is non-disruptive. Also we never withdraw our support. We dont make

money by upgrades unlike others. We make money by service.

Advertisment

Is CIO adoption going in the right direction?



Legacy challenge is mainly about awareness. We have to make CIOs understand

that they dont have to replace a legacy. The black box can stay there like

earlier. Its about adding standard Web based services and capabilities around

it and explore that functionality to our cloud. We are hearing figures like 37%

of firms ripping off old systems with SaaS. In general terms, the vast majority

of the world is still far from understanding SaaS. A majority of customers are

still stuck with packaged applications and have not begun to explore its power.

Are arguments around security and scalability being addressed?



Our security is world-class with ongoing certifications, audits and reviews.

In terms of scale, that is not really a problem because of our follow-the-sun

model. Today, we can claim user-base as big as 1.1 mn users. Our single largest

customer of the 6,500 customers can scale up without any issues.

Pratima Harigunani



maildqindia@cybermedia.co.in

Advertisment