Salesforce.com’s Platform Ambitions
Recently, the company launched a preview version of Apex Code, a Java-like language for building those apps. Salesforce executives say they want Salesforce to be a platform, not just a software-as-a-service product.
How serious are they about this? Serious enough to cannibalize Salesforce's own hosted applications business. If someone else builds a better Salesforce on top of the Salesforce platform, that'll be fine -- or so the company says.
That's a little tough to believe. IBM wasn't willing to do that when its mainframes ruled the I.T. landscape. Microsoft makes sure its own Windows applications always have an advantage over those of other vendors.
There's lots of money in applications. That's how Salesforce has built everything it has. Why would Salesforce risk a profitable and growing business just to turn itself into a platform and let others make money with it? Why would Salesforce do anything differently from IBM and Microsoft?
It makes no sense -- at least not without the Internet.
See, in the mainframe world, you leased everything -- hardware and software, from the infrastructure on up to the applications (which you leased or built). So IBM wanted to lease you as much of that stack as possible.
In the PC world, you buy everything -- hardware and software, from the infrastructure on up through the apps. So Microsoft wants to sell you as much of that stack as possible.
But in the Internet world, you don't buy or lease the infrastructure. Somebody else owns and runs that. And somebody else owns and runs most of the software in the middle, whether...