This guest post is written by Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of salesforce.com.
I quit my job at Oracle in 1999 because I couldn’t stop thinking about a simple question: “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Amazon.com?” Why couldn’t applications be run from a simple website, without software or hardware to install, and pricy consultants to hire? Why couldn’t we just compute in the Internet, or the cloud, and get away from the data center and all its complexity. Simply put, I wanted to simplify the enterprise. It was a pretty straight-forward idea, but from the confines in which I sat, there wasn’t anything close to a straight-forward solution.
That vision led to the founding of salesforce.com. But the enterprise world wasn’t ready for Amazon.com, or eBay, or Yahoo, or any of the innovative services that were changing the way consumers bought, sold, or communicated. I tell this story in my book Behind the Cloud and can’t help but note that the factors at play 10 years ago—an inspiring service, wide skepticism, and phenomenal potential—mirror where we are today. But it’s no longer Amazon that frames the questions or gives us the answers.
In this decade, I’ve become obsessed with a new simple question: “Why isn’t all enterprise software like Facebook?” → Read More
We’re big fans of Infectious, a startup that makes high quality decals and skins that let you customize the look of your iPhone, car, laptop, skateboards, and more. Today, the startup has launched Infectious skins for all current Blackberry models. Infectious now has designs for the Bold, Bold 9700, Storm2, Curve 8520, Curve 8530, Curve 8900 and Tour.
Infectious launched nearly two years ago with large, vinyl decorative stickers for your car, and they released decorative iPhone covers just in time for the 2008 holiday season. The company has since expanded to include laptop skins, custom skateboard decks, and wall prints. → Read More
http://ui.mevio.com/widgets/mwm/MevioWM.swf?r=35870 In this episode we talk about watch repair tips and some classic watch legends. Enjoy! → Read More
March is looking good for Nintendo fans. They just announced that the DSi XL will be shipping on the 28th, and now one of the most acclaimed indie games of all time has been confirmed for availability on the 22nd. If you’re not familiar with Cave Story, you’d do well to pick it up; it’s like 16-bit Metroid-style exploration and platforming taken to perfection. The stuff of legend among indie game lovers like myself, I assure you. → Read More
Flash games on the Web are getting to be so quick and responsive . . . that they can recreate 30-year-old arcade games no problem. And that’s just fine with me because those are about the only video games where I can hold my own. Online video arcade OMGPOP’s latest game is a remake of Atari’s Missile Command on its 30th anniversary.
The OMGPOP version is true to the original except it adds a multiplayer twist. It’s pretty addictive and the social aspect makes it more fun. Just like at the old coin arcades, it was always better when you went with a couple of friends. → Read More
Facebook has been doing background checks, known as due diligence, on the location-based social network Loopt, a source with knowledge of the talks tells us. Generally speaking, due diligence of this kind is only performed when a company is in acquisition or fundraising talks.
Loopt won’t comment on this story, and a Facebook spokesperson says “As a practical matter, we don’t comment on rumor and speculation.”
There is no indication that Facebook has made an actual offer to buy Loopt at this time, and in fact we don’t even have direct information that negotiations are taking place. But it’s clear that Facebook is at least considering acquiring Loopt, and/or others in this space.
It’s also not clear that Facebook is the only company taking a look at Loopt. Google is also highly interested in the mobile social and location space. Their recent launch of Buzz, which allows check-ins of locations via a mobile device, is just one indication of that. → Read More
You know, I actually meant to write this up a couple days ago, but at the time all I could find was the schematics you see below. No real indication of whether this was a product-to-be, a patent lark, or what. Engadget popped it up, though, and someone recognized it.
Apparently it’s been around for almost a year, and was given out as a gift from Microsoft Research Asia. One side charges a MS Laser Mouse 7000, which unfortunately is a terrible mouse, and the other is a microscopic display. It seems they’ve got some work to do on this one, but it’s a cool idea. → Read More
Last week, Yammer, the business-oriented microblogging platform that won TechCrunch50 2008, sent out invites to press inviting them to virtually attend a “major launch event” that will be broadcast through a WebEx meeting tomorrow morning. The company has also posted an invite to its blog, along with a not-so-subtle jab at its competitors: “Forget all that over-hyped chatter and annoying buzz, Yammer is releasing the next wave in Enterprise Microblogging“.
So what exactly is Yammer about to introduce? We’re hearing from one source that the company is planning to start allowing people to create networks that aren’t built around web domains. That may not sound like a big deal, but it would be a major change for Yammer, and one that could open it up to a huge number of new users. → Read More
First Google, now Foursquare. Hot on the heels of Google’s first Search television ad (run during the Super Bowl, no less), the location-based social network Foursquare is gearing up to do the same thing tonight.
In a tweet sent from their main Twitter account, the Foursquare team notes a “rumor” that an ad for their service will be running on Bravo tonight alongside the show Sheer Genius from 9 to 10 PM. But it’s not a rumor, we’ve seen the ad (and have embedded it below for your own viewing pleasure). It’s a 20-second spot made by Bravo for Foursquare to highlight their recently announced a partnership that allows the network to point out locations from its shows that let fans who use Foursquare (or their own Guides By Bravo app) go to them in the real world. This is believed to be one of the deals currently earning Foursquare some revenue. → Read More
The pain and sorrow of Polaroid’s death spiral is… ongoing. Luckily, there’s no rule against switching horses midstream, or whatever the idiom is. If you want instant pictures and crazy colors, go Lomo. Their famously weird lenses produce compelling pictures, and the LC-A+ body is actually capable of doing some ASA and focus adjustments, unlike pretty much every instant camera ever. → Read More
I don’t even want to speculate on the cost of something as cool-looking as this. I’ll just settle for pining away. The idea, I suppose, is to have speakers of every size necessary to reproduce sound perfectly, all attached to the same system. I mean, it’s not an original idea; most tower speakers use the same principle, but did you ever see a tower speaker that made you feel like you were listening to music on an airship? → Read More
Wows! Ten Billions is a lots of songs to sells! CrunchGears extends hearties congratulations, Apples. Yes, friends, even Apple lets slip a typo every once in a while. Seriously, though, that’s a lot. → Read More
Google has just announced via tweet that it’s integrating Facebook Page updates into its real-time search results. Google first revealed that this was coming back in December, when it first started including real-time data in its search results. Other data sources for Google’s real-time results include MySpace and Twitter.
The only problem with the new addition is that Facebook is only granting Google access to updates from its 3 million Pages, which are generally for celebrities, politicians, brands, and local businesses — not your average Facebook user. That information could occasionally be useful, but the power of real-time search comes from having a large number of contributors. → Read More
We’ve been looking at leaked pictures of this thing for a week or so, but there wasn’t much to say without the specs and all that. Besides, the leaked picture was just a little too muddy to show off the camera’s tasteful styling. But check this thing out: not only is the W90 waterproof to 20ft and shockproof from 4ft, it’s got a ring of LEDs around the lens to help with low light photos or movies. How come no one else thought of this? → Read More
Back in December, LinkedIn released a slick-looking update to the iPhone app. That looks to be the swan song for the man largely responsible for it, Bryan Haggerty. Because today’s he’s leaving LinkedIn for Twitter.
As he both tweets and blogs about, Haggerty will be joining Twitter’s fast-growing mobile team. At LinkedIn, Haggerty did a lot more than the iPhone app, he also built the apps for the Pre and the BlackBerry. He also helped build the Buzz application that let companies scan information about them on yes, Twitter. → Read More
Look, say what you will about the derivative nature of the Mario games (and Nintendo 1st-party products in general, Vitality Sensor excluded), you have to admit that for sheer platforming fun, they are absolutely unmatched. Just look at the varieties of platforming experience on display here. While for themes and graphics they’re not breaking any molds, the creativity on the level of fun and gameplay is oozing out of every frame, and sometimes that’s all that really matters. Yoshi is nice, of course, but I’m loving the drill and the 2-D segments more. That allows for precision game design, as we’ve seen in New Super Mario Bros and stuff like Mega Man 9. I swear, one of these days I might actually have to buy a Wii. → Read More
Aperture 3, Apple’s latest prosumer photo manipulation and organization software, got its first update and it looks like a doozy. As you recall, Aperture was eating memory like an Ancient Roman at an orgy and essentially bogging down all and sundry. This update improves the speed with which large libraries are imported and fixes many of the heavy batch issues that cropped up in the first release.
Full list of fixes after the jump. You can read more about the problem over at the KBase. → Read More
Early termination fees. No one likes them but they can sometimes be a necessary evil. If you become unhappy with your service provider or you are overwhelmed with lust for a new gadget on a different carrier, you pay the price. Carriers say that these termination fees, or ETFs, allow them to subsidize handsets and recover those costs over the course of a contract. Should a contract be broken, a carrier recovers those subsidies with an ETF.
The FCC recently decided something was amiss with ETFs and probed carriers into explaining the rhyme and reason behind the fees. The carriers have finally spoken, albeit a little unconvincingly. Most of you are already familiar with why ETFs exist, but it is interesting to see the canned and obvious responses from the carriers. → Read More
Here’s an interesting DIY project: Santosh apparently felt that the current generation of electric pocket bikes were just a little too large, so he built his own version. While Santosh’s bike is quite small, it is capable of running at almost 10mph. → Read More
