When Marc Benioff talks of having his former employersfor lunch, he is not extending polite dining invitations. The Saleforce.comboss talks over the menu with Karlin Lillington
Two things are striking about the European offices of sales automation software company Salesforce.com. The first is the location - the company somehow managed to snag offices at the top floor of the reconstructed buildings in Powerscourt Gardens, Enniskerry. Rather than the litter and car fumes of central Dublin, the office's large Georgian windows frame the full expanse of green gardens and the witch's cap peak of the Sugarloaf mountain.
The second is the floor rug in the rather spartan, if spacious, reception - the design is a ring of sharks circling a white badge with one of those red "no" slashes through it. Printed on the badge is the word "software". Not exactly something you'd pick up in Habitat. "No software" is the company's new slogan, following on from the equally startling "The end of software".
It might seem an odd way to advertise a company that is, of course, built around software. But Salesforce's software isn't in a box that you buy. It resides on the company's servers and, if you're a customer, you access it through a Web browser. The software enables firms to manage their sales through a browser.
In contrast, the sales automation software that comes in a box, from big competitors such as Oracle and Siebel, is exceedingly complex, generally requires months of customising before it can be used, and becomes very costly over the life of the program simply because it needs a team to manage it. That's not just Salesforce's line but a general criticism of customer relationship management (CRM) software from industry analysts such as Gartner Group. Gartner believes the software accounts for only 10 per cent of the cost of owning CRM software.
Salesforce founder and chairman Mr Marc Benioff grins a sharklike grin and bites hard when he discusses why he thinks his company is going to have the other two companies - both his former employers - for lunch.
"We think they're vulnerable and dated and ready to be disenfranchised. Their customers are unhappy. We're ready to take advantage of that discontent."
Mr Benioff spent years at Oracle headquarters in California, and his deliberately abrasive and laconic approach to discussing his rivals is of the Oracle school, as preached by Oracle founder Mr Larry Ellison. Mr Benioff, on a visit to Europe, is sitting in the enormous corner office of Salesforce European managing director Mr John Appleby, the former managing director of Oracle Ireland.
Along with engaging in an entertaining bit of rivalry and intra-corporate defections, upstart Salesforce, three years old this week, has already put the wind up the bigger companies. Oracle and Siebel have watched Salesforce steal market share - 3,000 paying customers, and $50 million (€57.5 million) in revenue, says Mr Benioff.
Clients include Dow Jones Newswire, Fujitsu, Siemens, Alcatel, and USA Today.
Oracle and Siebel say they aren't worried, that Salesforce's software isn't muscular enough to pose a threat. But many analysts believe the company has found a promising format for delivering a service, where software is basically "rented online", not bought outright.
Mr Benioff believes most, if not all, software services will eventually be delivered through what he calls a "utility" model of this sort, as opposed to the traditional CRM approach. Software services should be served up to customers just as they receive electricity or gas - they shouldn't have to build the delivery mechanism.
"Their fundamental model is bad. It's like saying you want a cup of water and someone says, 'Here's a shovel, so start digging'," he says. "The new model is that of a utility, with appliances [for accessing the service\] on the edges - a network and subscription model."
At the heart of Salesforce are some computer servers in California running the Linux operating system, "surrounded by diesel generators and armed guards", says Mr Benioff. The servers run Salesforce's software applications, which are accessed via a Web-browser. They also hold all the company's clients' data - one of the criticisms of this system, where information is not retained by the customer alone but resides with the service. But Mr Benioff says plenty of security, ranging from technological solutions to the armed guards, keeps customer data protected.
Another criticism of the company was that it offered a service only to smaller companies - Salesforce would need a foot in the big enterprise door for long-term growth. Mr Benioff says the company has that now with its new "enterprise edition", which also enables salespeople to work offline while travelling, for example.
He is pleased with the performance of the Irish office, he says. Mr Appleby notes that the office, which grew cautiously, was profitable as of December and currently employs about two dozen people. He says he'll double that number by the end of this year.
The company also has its own charitable foundation, through which it makes contributions of both money and skills, locally and globally. Mr Benioff says he believes it is up to corporations to ensure they are responsible world citizens, giving time and effort, not just cash, to communities in which they are located. His goal, he says, is to make sure anti-globalisation protesters no longer have to stage protests against the conduct of big corporations.
"There aren't going to be any protesters showing up at our conferences," he says. "Except maybe other software companies."
