Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: Don’t call Chatter a social network
Salesforce.com announced a new product today called Chatter, which it describes as Facebook and Twitter for enterprises. But during a press and analyst session at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, chief executive Marc Benioff said he doesn’t want you to think of Chatter as a social network.
That’s some, uh, creative thinking there — Chatter has employee profiles, status updates and news feeds, so it sounds a lot like a social network to me. And… Continue Reading
Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff: ‘Many CEOs are afraid to get too personal’
Marc Benioff has been the reliably outspoken chief executive of Salesforce.com for 10 years. Salesforce was one of the pioneers of the software-as-a-service business model, where traditional software is replaced by a web-based application that customers pay for via subscription, and he trumpeted the model with ads declaring that software is dead. Now that SaaS and cloud computing are becoming an increasing part of tech business models, Benioff said this spells big trouble for companies like… Continue Reading
Salesforce.com on Microsoft: “They hate everybody”
Salesforce.com’s strategy can be boiled down to one word, according to chief executive Marc Benioff — love. Of course, Benioff was being a little tongue-in-cheek as he answered questions from analysts and reporters at today’s Dreamforce conference in San Francisco. But he was illustrating a real argument about how Salesforce.com might beat software giant Microsoft in the cloud computing market.
As with its other offerings, Microsoft’s new cloud-computing application platform, Windows Azure, is all about tying… Continue Reading
Dreamforce: Salesforce.com adds Facebook, Amazon and Neil Young
As tech giants eye the cloud computing market, Salesforce.com chief executive Marc Benioff made it clear that he intends to stay competitive. During his keynote speech today at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, he first discussed Force.com Sites, the service for hosting public-facing websites and apps that I covered last night. Then he announced that Salesforce.com is connecting its business application platform with Facebook and Amazon.
The Facebook announcement is probably the most significant, because… Continue Reading
Zuora raises $15M to manage online subscriptions
Zuora, which offers online services to automate customer subscriptions and payments, has raised $15 million in a second round of funding.
Chief executive Tien Tzuo said he wants Zuora to be the web’s top “online subscription platform,” the way PayPal is the default platform for web payments. Zuora has released two complementary products so far, Z-Billing and Z-Payments (the latter launched earlier this month). The Redwood City, Calif. startup says it now has 45 customers.
And as… Continue Reading
Zuora’s new product helps companies collect money from customers
Zuora, a startup that offers software to manage customer subscriptions, just announced its second product, dubbed “Z-Payments.” While Zuora’s first product, Z-Billing, automates the billing process (duh), Z-Payments handles the other side of the equation — actually allowing customers to pay those bills, including integration with online payment service PayPal.
The product addresses a common complaint among Zuora customers, says chief executive Tien Tzuo — billing customers isn’t always enough. There are always people who don’t… Continue Reading
Tapulous wants to be leading application ecosystem for the iPhone
Tapulous, a new Silicon Valley startup, embodies the craze that’s going on right now around the iPhone.
Tucked inside a ground-floor office on Hamilton Ave. in Palo Alto, Calif., a stone’s throw from social network comany Facebook, the company’s eight employees are feverishly building applications solely to work on the iPhone.
Never mind that the Apple has sold a mere six million iPhones to date, compared to Nokia’s 400 million handsets. Tapulous’ chief executive Bart Decrem believes… Continue Reading
Zuora offers subscription services to all those online software companies
updated
Zuora is a Silicon Valley company that says it offers a simpler, less expensive way for companies to offer online subscription services. It launches today announcing it has gotten $6.5 million in a first round of funding led by venture firm Benchmark Capital.
Until now, software companies like Salesforce or gaming companies like World of Warcraft have faced a lot of pain in selling their products to subscribers.
The main provider of subscription services to date has… Continue Reading
Social network ad company Lookery raises more seed capital
Lookery, the company that offers an ad network for applications social network companies such as Facebook, has raised another couple hundred thousand in seed capital, the company’s founder Scott Rafer said.
Investors include:
Marc Benioff
Tom Cole (blog)
Reid Hoffman
TAG, which is Saul (blog) and Robin Klein’s (blog) seed fund
Jonathan Miller
Allen Morgan (blog)
Validity Sensors raises $20M more for fingerprint sensors
Validity Sensors, San Jose start-up the builds advanced fingerprint sensors, has raised $20 million in its latest round of venture capital, in what appears to be a formal financial restart of the company.
The round included a “substantial investment” from Qualcomm Ventures, according to the company, which suggests the company’s technology will soon be used for mobile phones. Qualcomm is a leading mobile phone chip company.
The round was led, however, by venture firm TeleSoft Partners,… Continue Reading