bakedjake - 3:32 pm on Jun 6, 2007 (gmt 0)

It's certainly not executive/investor friendly, but one might argue that is not its job, either.

SalesForce SFA's market is to the small-medium size business that needs a decent CRM system and wants to do absolutely no customization whatsoever.

Notice I didn't say you couldn't customize SalesForce, because you can, but that's not what most people do with it.

CRM is not a "piece of software" that you buy - it's an idea for automating the sales and customer contact process. The solution that you implement by definition will not be effective if it is off the shelf; it needs to exactly match how your business works.

I understand what Google is trying to do here, but it won't work in the way they claim it does (it will get them more customers, though). It does sound appealing to your typical VAR exective though who is migrating from ACT/Goldmine and wants another reason to spend a good amount of money per month on an online-based solution.

A world without Microsoft?

By the way, the killer app is CRM 100% completely integrated with Outlook.

Microsoft knows this. They're not stupid. They also know that SalesForce can never be that.