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Mark Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, started out at Oracle. Larry Ellison was his mentor. I think he was even at Larry Ellison's (3rd?) wedding. He left Oracle

Mark Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, started out at Oracle. Larry Ellison was his mentor. I think he was even at Larry Ellison's (3rd?) wedding. He left Oracle to start Salesforce. Salesforce is a software layer on top of databases, often called CRM. It's the answer for "how do you sell a relational database to a guy that just needs a rolodex?" Salesforce actually uses Oracle databases to power their infrastructure, to this day. Over the past 10 years, Salesforce has built out its own platform that basically turns Salesforce into a web-based version of visual fox pro. Which sounds bad, but consider that many "Salesforce.com administrators" are NOT programmers. Then to be taken more seriously as a custom development platform, to be able to add more advanced logic, they built their own scripting language (Apex) and bought Heroku. So it started as (pretty much) a fancy rolodex but has evolved into a platform through which you can develop certain types of software and workflows that would be difficult with alternatives. "Difficult with alternatives" becomes less true every day (which is why I got away from pitching businesses on custom development with Salesforce and into pitching businesses on custom development with python and purely open solutions.) Despite having legitimate competition from open source, their sales and marketing has done a very good job at convincing their users that those don't exist, or that Salesforce invented them (cough heroku). Maybe you've heard of Oracle or SAP consultants in the 90s making a very good living advising businesses how to set up and use these products? Salesforce.com is now that. And despite being "enterprise" they actually have very talented engineers. Also, critical mass. They have managed to build this ecosystem and everyone working in Corporate IT is drinking the kool aid. Google "Dreamforce 2016" if you want to see just how cult like it's all become. Like I say, they are going to replace Oracle. It's funny how much shared DNA they have though.

pryelluw 10y ago
Well put. There are an amazing amount of opportunities in selling custom solutions not tied in to enterprise behemoths.
AJ007 10y ago
I noticed in the last couple of years as geographically and social circle unrelated friends who were in sales suddenly were working for SalesForce. I imagined they just ramped up their own sales force. From a business standpoint they are big enough to just buy companies. From a longer term tech standpoint it is harder to guess what could happen. The analogy of drug companies doing leveraged buyout of pharmaceuticals with patents nearing a sunset date seems to apply here.
gaius 10y ago
ApEx (Application Express) is an Oracle product, more like a visual RAD tool for the web. Did Salesforce really call their scripting language the same thing??
- jacques_chester 10y ago
  Yep. That's one of the reasons why searching for "ApEx" on Stack Overflow isn't fruitful. The other is that nobody, if they can help it, uses ApEx.
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    > The other is that nobody, if they can help it, uses ApEx. Oh oh. I worked for more than two years with a team that continued to expand their investment in Oracle and Apex. When everything you know is Oracle, everything looks like a task for Oracle ;-)
    - jacques_chester 10y ago
      That was my experience too, I worked on ApEx stuff for around 2 years. It came free with the database license, so it got used. I don't miss it.
  - F_J_H 10y ago
    I've had really positive experiences with APEX. If you already have an Oracle DB, it's hard to beat for quickly standing up data centric business apps. I'm curious - what made your experience negative?
    - jacques_chester 10y ago
      It's fine if you paint inside the lines. For quick CRUD stuff it was fine. As soon as you need something that doesn't quite fit the limited palette, you need to go underneath and write PL/SQL. Not as much fun. In my experience, nothing stays pure CRUD forever.
xapata 10y ago
I was once burdened with building a complex software using a SaaS CRM as the framework. It was a terrible experience. Everything was slow. The database didn't allow complex schemas. I quit. Now I build everything with Python on Bottle.
hammock 10y ago
What are the good open source alternatives to CRM, or to ESP (ExactTarget)?
- reitanqild 10y ago
  Last I checked CoreBOS (forked from vTiger, who forked from SugarCRM a few years earlier) seemed very promising, having cleaned up a lot of old php mess. Also Odoo, formerly openERP, is something I would like to take a closer look at. Edit: especially now that they have updated their license terms.
  - tluyben2 10y ago
    Some of my colleagued evaluated Odoo recently and found it to be a slow, buggy mess. It has everything but even the hosted version did not work well at all when they used it with a few people. Anyone have a better experience?
    - reitanqild 10y ago
      Thanks for the late reply, thats nice to know. My reason so far has been the AGPL license that I have shunned so far but I was really hoping for the next release that I understood should be under a liberal license.
- dave_sullivan 10y ago
  AWS, postgres, and django. Given a company that might buy licenses for 50 salesforce users, I make this case: That company can expect to pay $75,000 per year simply for licenses, that's before bringing in a salesforce developer for $75-250 per hour for setup and support. So instead, give me the $75,000 to build a django web app that does everything you wanted salesforce for and then some + get better support than you would from Salesforce. The trouble with solutions like Sugar and VTiger is they try to do what Salesforce does but they do it worse, and in the end just make a bad product. All of the complaints about Salesforce rollouts people talk about, 10x them for the open CRM alternatives. If what you want is a fully integrated CRM platform (for whatever reason) Salesforce.com is the best choice. Otherwise build custom. Most companies are using 10% of the features of Salesforce, hence why I argue they could get away with something a lot simpler.
mandeepj 10y ago
>Mark Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, started out at Oracle. Larry Ellison was his mentor. Mark Benioff worked at Apple also. He is very open about admitting Steve Jobs as his mentor. Although, nothing wrong in having two mentors.
- ribs 10y ago
  Yeah, especially with those two! "My mentors were Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison." Who wouldn't want to be able to say that?
fareesh 10y ago
Foxpro! http://e.lvme.me/kdzw08x.jpg http://e.lvme.me/kdzw08x.jpg

pryelluw 10y ago

Well put. There are an amazing amount of opportunities in selling custom solutions not tied in to enterprise behemoths.

AJ007 10y ago

I noticed in the last couple of years as geographically and social circle unrelated friends who were in sales suddenly were working for SalesForce. I imagined they just ramped up their own sales force. From a business standpoint they are big enough to just buy companies. From a longer term tech standpoint it is harder to guess what could happen. The analogy of drug companies doing leveraged buyout of pharmaceuticals with patents nearing a sunset date seems to apply here.

gaius 10y ago

ApEx (Application Express) is an Oracle product, more like a visual RAD tool for the web. Did Salesforce really call their scripting language the same thing??

jacques_chester 10y ago
Yep. That's one of the reasons why searching for "ApEx" on Stack Overflow isn't fruitful. The other is that nobody, if they can help it, uses ApEx.
- reitanqild 10y ago
  > The other is that nobody, if they can help it, uses ApEx. Oh oh. I worked for more than two years with a team that continued to expand their investment in Oracle and Apex. When everything you know is Oracle, everything looks like a task for Oracle ;-)
  - jacques_chester 10y ago
    That was my experience too, I worked on ApEx stuff for around 2 years. It came free with the database license, so it got used. I don't miss it.
- F_J_H 10y ago
  I've had really positive experiences with APEX. If you already have an Oracle DB, it's hard to beat for quickly standing up data centric business apps. I'm curious - what made your experience negative?
  - jacques_chester 10y ago
    It's fine if you paint inside the lines. For quick CRUD stuff it was fine. As soon as you need something that doesn't quite fit the limited palette, you need to go underneath and write PL/SQL. Not as much fun. In my experience, nothing stays pure CRUD forever.

xapata 10y ago

I was once burdened with building a complex software using a SaaS CRM as the framework. It was a terrible experience. Everything was slow. The database didn't allow complex schemas. I quit. Now I build everything with Python on Bottle.

hammock 10y ago

What are the good open source alternatives to CRM, or to ESP (ExactTarget)?

reitanqild 10y ago
Last I checked CoreBOS (forked from vTiger, who forked from SugarCRM a few years earlier) seemed very promising, having cleaned up a lot of old php mess. Also Odoo, formerly openERP, is something I would like to take a closer look at. Edit: especially now that they have updated their license terms.
- tluyben2 10y ago
  Some of my colleagued evaluated Odoo recently and found it to be a slow, buggy mess. It has everything but even the hosted version did not work well at all when they used it with a few people. Anyone have a better experience?
  - reitanqild 10y ago
    Thanks for the late reply, thats nice to know. My reason so far has been the AGPL license that I have shunned so far but I was really hoping for the next release that I understood should be under a liberal license.
dave_sullivan 10y ago
AWS, postgres, and django. Given a company that might buy licenses for 50 salesforce users, I make this case: That company can expect to pay $75,000 per year simply for licenses, that's before bringing in a salesforce developer for $75-250 per hour for setup and support. So instead, give me the $75,000 to build a django web app that does everything you wanted salesforce for and then some + get better support than you would from Salesforce. The trouble with solutions like Sugar and VTiger is they try to do what Salesforce does but they do it worse, and in the end just make a bad product. All of the complaints about Salesforce rollouts people talk about, 10x them for the open CRM alternatives. If what you want is a fully integrated CRM platform (for whatever reason) Salesforce.com is the best choice. Otherwise build custom. Most companies are using 10% of the features of Salesforce, hence why I argue they could get away with something a lot simpler.

mandeepj 10y ago

>Mark Benioff, the CEO of Salesforce, started out at Oracle. Larry Ellison was his mentor. Mark Benioff worked at Apple also. He is very open about admitting Steve Jobs as his mentor. Although, nothing wrong in having two mentors.

ribs 10y ago
Yeah, especially with those two! "My mentors were Steve Jobs and Larry Ellison." Who wouldn't want to be able to say that?

fareesh 10y ago

Foxpro! http://e.lvme.me/kdzw08x.jpg http://e.lvme.me/kdzw08x.jpg