Salesforce.com CEO and founder Marc Benioff took the stage today at Oracle OpenWorld. The fact that Benioff is making an appearance is very strange considering Benioff and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison have been at odds over the past year. They are the perfect Frenemies. Taking the stage with Benioff is Michael Dell, which isn’t surprising considering the recent partnership between Dell computers and Salesforce.com.
Benioff and Ellison have an interesting past. Benioff worked at Oracle for some years and Ellison was one of the first investors as Salesforce, which Benioff highlighted in his speech. Benioff enumerated on the power of cloud computing, saying that it is more elastic, scalable and generally easier for companies to use. Salesforce currently has 63,200 paying customers.
Michael Dell came on stage, also prosthelytizing the virtues of cloud computing and software as a service. He says that the success of cloud technologies is the reason why Dell bought IT consulting firm Perrot Systems.
Benioff didn’t spare any digs at Oracle, saying that when he used to come to Open World he used to feel it was targeted towards just large businesses. But Salesforce, he says, can be used by both small and large businesses. He emphasized Salesforce’s “top” security systems, which aren’t compromised despite being in the cloud. Benioff spoke about powers of Salesforce’s application management Force.com platform and app exchange.
The Service Cloud, which is Salesforce’s fastest growing product line, is hoping to revolutionize call center technologies, says Benioff. Salesforce recently launched a new version of the Service Cloud, adding in-depth integration with Twitter, Facebook, and Google. Dell was actually a pilot partner using the Service Cloud.