For all of us, this has been a period unlike any other.
The gyrations of the markets and the shifts in the economy have been nothing less than historic. Times like these will stress-test every business plan. No company will be untouched. For many businesses, this is a time to hunker down, retrench, and question assumptions.
But in the Cloud Computing world, we have a different view. The Cloud Computing model is in sync with these uncertain times. At Salesforce.com, our Cloud Computing model means that we can offer customers low upfront costs, low risk, and fast results. That's a solid value proposition in any environment, but it is particularly compelling when times get tough. The credit markets may be paralysed, but customers don't have to be. Cloud Computing does not require customers to spend precious capital. Businesses can easily start small projects and scale them up as they produce results.
That's exactly what happened to us during the contraction in tech spending earlier in the decade. Cloud Computing allowed us to sign on small accounts at big companies, allowing us to "seed and grow" That's cloud flexibility and scalability at work. When it comes to developing apps in The Cloud, the contrasts between the old enterprise software model and the new platform as a service model are more stark in this new economic light. The enterprise software model was built to sell ISVs lots of software and hardware. Tools had to be purchased, servers configured, databases set up, and networks tuned - a lot of work and a lot of code before you got to write the first line of the application that inspired you to get into the business in the first place.
Now, with platforms as a service, time- and capital- consuming infrastructure provisioning tasks are eliminated. LAMP stack developers can harness the processing and provisioning resources of Amazon Web Services, Python developers can quickly start coding on Google's App Engine, and enterprise application developers and instantly inherit the platform that powers SalesforceCRM when they use Force.com. You pay for what you need today-- not what you hope you will need two years from now.
Speed unlimited
The big payoff for developers who use platforms as a service is speed. Take Riskonnect CEO Bob Morrell. At Dreamforce (our user and developer conference) 2007, Bob decided that our Force.com platform would be ideal for his new application, which helps corporations manage risk. In just a few weeks, he had a working prototype. By Dreamforce 2008, he had not only a robust working product, but also big-name customers like The Southern Company and Whole Foods. In a turbulent economic environment, Bob didn't have to prove to his prospects that he had built enough security, reliability and availability into his infrastructure to support his app-- he had ours. He didn't have to worry about scale-- it was built in.
That kind of speed and instant scalability is just nor possible in traditional enterprise software. The pressure is on for entrepreneurs to get cash flow positive quickly these days, and platforms as a service are providing all the right answers. It's clear that the current economic climate is making customers look very carefully at how they spend their tech budgets. In a telling sign of the times, one of our traditional enterprise software competitors recently announced zero percent financing for its software mega-purchases. Nothing draws attention to the fundamental flaw of traditional enterprise software more than a promotion usually deployed by automakers to move last year’s model off the lot.’’
We welcome that closer look at tech spending, particularly when it comes to enterprise software. That’s because despite these uncertain times, we believe that for our customers, the future is looking up—to the Clouds.
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