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Bells and whistles can often cause more confusion than value, as this illustration by Neil Swaab so clearly shows. |
Salesforce.com and Google have announced that they are in talks about creating a partnership. Salesforce.com is a leader in Customer Relationship Management (CRM) software.
Obviously this agreement is good news to anybody holding Salesforce stock, but is it really going to be a boon to their customers? What is Google offering that makes the experience better than it already is?
The two companies have two big things in common: both hate Microsoft, and both offer their products as online applications. Google is probably salivating that they could offer CRM software online as part of this agreement, but once again, how does this benefit a current Salesforce customer?
On the surface it looks like it could help increase customers for Salesforce. But are there any professional sales folks out there that still don’t know what CRM is, or that Salesforce is an option? I’m wondering if the partnership isn’t going to be more change for change’s sake in the eyes of current Salesforce customers, and if it “Adobe Photoshops” the current online application — whereby they add so much Google stuff to the application that it has too many bells and whistles (ala Adobe Photoshop to the average professional).