The Cloud Pleaser
Weinberger: The social technology seems to be getting a lot of traction in the Service Cloud. Do you have any plans for social technology in the Sales Cloud?
Benioff: We do and we’ve shown some of that, but I think there’s going to be more of that to come for sure….We need to do more of those things, yes: more Twitter, more Facebook, more Google. Google’s done a lot of tremendous things.We’ve pioneered a lot with
Google. If you put your username and password into Salesforce—if you’re a Google user—a new function appears and you can do all kinds of new things. We need to do all of those kinds of things with the Twitters and Facebooks as well. This is where I think it’s not just our platform, but it’s these other platforms that are emerging that are so powerful in bringing those things together. For the customer, if they can grab the Google, and grab the Salesforce, and grab the Facebook, and grab the Twitter, or whatever else and then build that out? [That] is awesome.
Weinberger: Considering what you’ve achieved in the last 10 years, do you see a different path for the company over the next 10 years?
Benioff: Well, yeah. The last 10 years have been about these apps. The next 10 years will be a lot about the platform. The platform is still nascent in its ability to be successful. This whole idea that we’re creating a platform that lets other people build on it is amazing.
Weinberger: Salesforce.com has been pretty consistent over the years in terms of its price points.
Benioff: Yeah. We haven’t changed our prices in a long time and I do not see us doing that.
Myron: Regarding pricing, one of your customers told us that, when he dropped down from 135 users to 105, some of the people around him said Salesforce.com would make its money back just by raising its prices, but you didn’t. So they were pleased that you’re able to work with them even in these tough economic times.
Benioff: That’s my key message. That’s the most important thing that we can do. The elastic message that we’ve had about our service for the last 10 years—that it can go up and down with the customer, that we’re going to be there for them, that we’re going to work with them—this is really true.