Fitting In The Pieces

In a decade's time, Salesforce has managed to reinvent enterprise computing
through its pioneering breakthrough of software-as-a-service (SaaS). Its
flagship CRM on SaaS changed the paradigm of enterprise computing; as we migrate
from the world of SaaS into the world of cloud computing, Salesforce is trying
to place itself into a unique position.

SaaS is the best-known element, but by itself it does not constitute cloud
computing. In fact, it is debatable whether any of the elements alone would
constitute the necessary conditions for cloud computing.

Other elements include platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and
infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), which can be thought of as the supporting
structures for software development and deployment and the physical data center,
respectively, which every software system must have regardless of how it is
delivered to the customer. And this is precisely what Salesforce is trying to
reinforce in its new avatar as a cloud vendor.

Most platform companies offer some amount of software to integrate disparate
applications, but their architecture is decidedly single tenant. Compared to the
hyper-efficient multi-tenant architecture of the Salesforce cloud, they use a
lot of resource. On the other hand, Salesforce has developed a shared
infrastructure based on multi-tenancy, a development platform (also shared) that
it has used to build and enhance its SaaS CRM solutions.

Salesforce has introduced AppExchange2, a new version of its market place for
cloud business apps, with a new category of social enterprise apps-the
ChatterExchange, which includes the apps from multiple vendors that get built in
the future. Salesforce.com's Service Cloud 2 has also gone social with Chatter.
The company has extended the Chatter private beta to more than 250 Service Cloud
2 customers. Salesforce says that in combining the Service Cloud and Chatter,
companies can boost productivity gains by empowering service agents with new
capabilities.

But many analysts feel that Salesforce has entered into the real world of
cloud post its acquisition of Jigsaw. The combination of Jigsaw and
salesforce.com will allow companies to easily find, purchase and manage data
that is seamlessly integrated with their CRM apps.

The acquisition will combine the power of salesforce.com's suite of CRM
applications and leading enterprise cloud platform with Jigsaw's cloud-based
model for the automation of acquiring, completing and cleansing business contact
data.

Jigsaw's data cloud platform also creates an enormous opportunity for
developers and independent software vendors to deliver entirely new
applications.

Rajneesh De

(Source: DQ)