back to article Salesforce CEO: We're doing great because everyone else in CRM sucks

Chalk up another big quarter for SaaS icon Salesforce.com, as the cloud CRM provider saw revenues jump by 26 per cent year-over-year. CEO Marc Benioff said the company was on pace for its first $10bn full-year revenues as it turned in a solid second quarter for fiscal year 2018: Revenues were $2.56bn, up 26 per cent from Q2 …

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    FTFY

    "Everyone else in CRM sucks"

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FTFY

      Upvote for that comment. Salesforce used to be good, but they fell into the enteprise software trap. Better = more knobs to turn. Now it is a mess of unnecessary faux social functionality.

      Not that any of the other CRMs can compete with a multi user Google Sheet either.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: FTFY

        The original goals of SFDC were to make enterprise software as a website (SaaS), which everyone does now. Make a CRM which is as easy to use as Amazon or Google, maybe true originally but not true anymore. It is a lot like Siebel used to be, a hassle to use.

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: FTFY

      We've been a Salesforce customer for years, have a whole load of apps built on the platform and have a multiple million pounds bill.

      Currently looking into splitting those apps out into stand-alone systems and moving to Sugar CRM for the pure CRM function.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: FTFY

        Currently looking into splitting those apps out into stand-alone systems and moving to Sugar CRM for the pure CRM function.

        Could I suggest SuiteCRM then? 100% derivative but (a) more actively developed and supported in the UK and (b) not lumbering you with a massive bill for the mere fact that you actually want functionality (which is where SugarCRM went all American and lost the plot.

        Less bullshit, more customer focus and FAR easier to get compliant with EU data protection laws, which is a major problem for Salesforce (one they don't really like talking about, funny that).

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: FTFY

          Upvote for SuiteCRM, obvs.

          Implemented SuiteCRM at a previous place. Although the FD kept pushing its use into quite the wrong direction. He went before I did :-)

          Unfortunately, the current place was well into SugarCRM before I joined, so haven't (yet) presuaded them to jump.

          Now, if only they were implemented in Python (pref using Django....) rather than spawn-of-satan-php. But, in fairness, that was all there was when they started.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: FTFY

        check out Enable Technologies, offering discounted migration

  2. macjules

    Well, he does have a point ..

    Despite presenting this in his best Gavin Belson manner he is pretty much on-target. IBM's CRM "Cloud" is a total and complete joke ,,, f/you very much Optevia, Oracle's CRM does interesting things when you hook the API up to your user registration form. MS Dynamics works .. but the response delays are dismal.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Well, he does have a point ..

      Our problem was that all of these things are too proprietary to audit (and admittedly our security guys are not overly fond of Microsoft anyway for storing anything as critical as client data and sales information), so in the end we went Open Source.

      We're testing SuiteCRM right now, and apart from being overly sensitive to URL manipulation by plugins such as Ghostery and uBlock when using the admin functions (they give cross scripting alerts which they need to fix IMHO) it's basically SugarCRM with a more sane business model.

      I suspect we'll soon buy some consulting to structure it for our needs (we could do it ourselves, but there are time & resource constraints).

  3. Anonymous Coward
    Facepalm

    Salesforce: the turd that sits above the water line.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    What a joke

    There have been opensource solutions that work FAR better.

    - Search is broken

    - Sorting is broken

    - Overly cumbersome

    - Automation to create, update, etc is TERRIBLE

    - Reports are incorrect (as searches of non-fixed fields are incorrect).

    One of the more painful, that create more work instead of less work.

    Part of the Departments of Redundant Redunancies, departments.

    We have to use layers of other packages that it sends data to, to make

    it functional.

    Yes part of this was implementation, but it should be quality without exception

    but in part is the software design.

    And then on top of all that you have to pay for it.. sigh..

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: What a joke

      Are we in the same office?!

      Agreed on those but it is implementation. But before someone says "whats the problem then", if you have to make changes - overly complex. If it was done wrong - will be wrong forever. Forget the costs to SF you have to think about all the consultancy, and then its in their interest to be screwed up so you keep extending that juicy contract.

      The whole cycle is literally a racket.

  5. Prosthetic Conscience

    It's exactly the enterprisy bit that makes it so attractive to C*Os that were landed on your company and think they know it's the magic bullet to fix your propblems. (All problems. Yes that includes boiling the ocean™)

  6. Art Slartibartfast

    Indeed, Salesforce used to be the best out there, but it has gone the same way as Microsoft. Instead of getting basic features right, it just added more fluff that goes unused. Essential features like making converted currency amounts available in formulas have languished for 10 years in the suggestion box.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Salesforce used to be the best out there

      Your requirements must differ. Our lawyers took one read through the terms and nixed the idea. Then our security team looked at the Microsoft solution, and that was that ne out of the window so we had to find something else :).

  7. John Sanders
    Holmes

    It seems that...

    Market inertia does not exists eh?

  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Moving from SF

    I work for a Sage CRM business partner and we're seeing more and more people moving from Sales Force to something like Sage CRM because of cost and the alternative (like Sage CRM) still being able to do the every day things they want a CRM system to do.

  9. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Yep, a horrible job

    Quote: "Our competitors have done a horrible job in the last few years,"

    Sounds about right. I'm sick of software from "brogrammers" running amok, who also get paid twice what I do. And I'm sick of software written offshore by people paid a quarter of what I get, which is not a living wage in 1st, 2nd or 3rd world countries, and they have zero incentive to get it right. The discipline is gone from programming. Marketing types have taken over from the techies. Software getting worse and worse, nobody seems to care. My only consolation is that eventually people have enough of it, they pull out, the company doing the horrible job loses its customers and goes under. Good riddance to Horrible Job companies run by drink-swilling marketing "bro's".

    (Anonymous because of my ranting.)

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Salesfarce *IS* up (down?) there with the rest of them

    Salesfarce sucks just as hard as the rest.

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