post

Simon Cowell Left American Idol to Launch CRM Idol. But He Did Not Make the Final Cut.

Paul Greenberg did.  Simon is off doing X-Factor instead Smile

Paul Simon Greenberg Cowell 1

Joke apart,  if you are in the CRM business, or interested in CRM, or even just social software, chances are you’ve heard of Paul Greenberg. Simply said, he is the Godfather of CRM. And Godfathers get to make decisions.  If you follow Paul’s annual CRM Watchlist series it’ll be obvious that Paul keeps on expanding the horizon for CRM, covering lots of vendors not traditionally thought of being in the CRM space.  Now he invites even more CRM-Social-yourfavoritetermhere small companies (“small” < $12M revenue) to the podium offering otherwise hard-to-achieve exposure.  Paul assembled an amazing team of Judges, and I am humbled to be on his Team.  Talk about Judges… just like on the other Idol, you don’t have to “win” to win. Smile

CRM Idol 2011: The Open Season is here – see Paul’s full announcement below.

(PG Note: The post you see below represents the “official” launch of CRM Idol 2011 and is one that all eight primary judges endorse. For me personally, this is my “angelic” side – the side of me that wants to support an industry that has been good to me. On my more edgy side, some of the reason that this was hatched was because of PR agents who basically don’t do their homework and pitch me all day long without an inkling about me as an actual human. They think I’m an influential CRM cyborg. Dealing with that from the other side, Brent Leary and I will be launching a music video in a few months from Playaz Productions. Heh. Heh.

But the side of me that’s grateful to an industry and friends and those companies that actually have honored me by listening to me blather all these years, is enthralled by the idea that we may be able to give back to all of you through CRM Idol. So, thank you for everything over the years and welcome to CRM Idol 2011: the Open Season!!)

Okay, everyone this is the big one. CRM Idol 2011: The Open Seasonis here and we’re ready to take your companies and find out which one of you in the Americas and which one of you in EMEA is not the next CRM Idol but the FIRST CRM Idol.

The Idea

Most of what we’re trying to do was outlined in the pre-announcement announcement of CRM Idol last week. But it bears some repeating:

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

post

Zoho Rounds Out Small Business Suite with Accounting App–Zoho Books

This morning Zoho, known for SMB focused SaaS offerings in the areas of productivity, collaboration, business processes launched an Accounting app: Zoho Books. I typically don’t do detailed product reviews, when I see the first good ones, will link to them – just a few points here and then let’s discuss how it rounds out Zoho’s overall strategy.

The following video introduction is a bit “cutesy”:

-and that’s quite intentional.  In fact simplicity is one of the key points in Zoho Books:

  • Clear, streamlined UI, tabs, easy terminology –i.e. Money In, Money Out. This service is clearly targeted at non-accountants, which is most of us in a small business – hey, even I can understand most of it.Smile
  • That said, Books offers the opportunity to share data and collaborate with accountants (Ouch, did I really needed that reminder for tax time?;-) )
  • Multi-currency support – this is typically a later add-on in many systems, but Zoho has a wide international presence with most of their other services
  • Integration with Zoho CRM, Invoice, Mail – somewhat basic now, will be improved as we’ve seen with the rest of Zoho’s offerings
  • Support for electronic payment systems like Paypal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net. This is a “hidden treasure” inherited from twin service Zoho Invoice, which is a subset of Book’s functionality and can be easily upgraded. Why hidden? Because relatively few know that Paypal offers 50 cent (yes, that’s $0.50 per transaction) Business Payments NOT available through the Web, only via their API, i.e. apps like Zoho Invoice and Boooks.

Having said that, is Zoho Books a Quickbooks killer?

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

post

The Master of Guerilla Marketing Turns Microsoft’s Prank Around

CloudAve readers know I am a fan of edgy marketing.  Now it’s time to update my recently compiled inventory of software marketing pranks.  A major show like Salesforce.com’s DreamForce would not even be real without some guerilla marketing activity – except the players seemed to have traded places this year.  Guerilla Marketing is normally David’s weapon, but this year Goliath – Holy Microsoft – came down to us earthlings running around on Segways handing out MS Dynamics CRM discount coupons:

Image credit: Centernetworks

I did not get Forced

On a side-note…

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

post

Is HP about to Ditch Oracle Siebel in favor of Salesforce.com?

Today’s big news is that HP is dropping Siebel CRM now owned by Oracle in favor of Salesforce.com.

It’s a bit unfortunate that this is presented in the context of personal ego wars – unfortunate, but understandable,  considering that Oracle has been on a warpath with HP ever since former CEO Hurd got ousted, in fact they launched a global manhunt for incoming HP CEO Leo Apotheker.  But ego clashes make good stories. :-)

That said, the real story …

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve » Zoli Erdos)

post

There’s PR. And there’s Dumb PR. And there’s Even Dumber PR. And No CRM System Can Save Them.

The best CRM system can’t help you if your sales / marketing team is clueless.  Here’s a ridiculous email I’ve just received.  Name removed to protect the (not-so) innocent

X. Y. kindly requests a meeting

Hi Zoli,

In celebrating our 40th anniversary, I’ve been given the privilege to manage the relationship between your organization and Communispond. When you have a moment, please take a look at the information below. Kindly let me know if it’s out of date, and the best way to reach you. I wish to be respectful of your time and patience.

Is your organization prepared with the communication tools and behaviors (presenting, selling, coaching, persuading, etc) to achieve greater success in 2010? I would like to hear your thoughts and ideas on any communication challenges you anticipate, and see if we can help. Please let me know if you’d be willing to meet with me – either conference call or face to face. l greatly appreciate your consideration.

Warm Regards,
X. Y.

What’s wrong with this email campaign?  A few things… where should I even start?

Obsolete data: we all know this is a disease that plagues many (CRM) systems, but this one is extreme.  The data shown on this business card never existed in such combination, but bits and pieces did.  Yes, I participated in SAP’s International Consultant Training – 20 years ago, in Vienna, Austria (that’s in Europe, just in case…), so they must have picked it up from a very-very ancient resume. (It also means I understand Charlie’s joke…).  Yes, I did work at SAP America, when they were a tiny outfit with 70+ employees, and the Newton Square HQ listed above was not even a dream.

Data errors do happen – but how on Earth could they dump 20-year old, pre-CRM, pre-ERP, pre-everything data into a CRM system?

Now let’s focus on content.  The title, specifically.  That’s the marketer’s opportunity to grab attention – or lose it.  Time is money, and most of us don’t have a lot to waste – why on Earth would I want to meet a stranger without any previous contact or knowing the intent?

You just don’t send out an initial contact request asking for a purpose-less meeting.

Anyway – this email is in its well-deserved place in my Spam folder and Communispond is flagged as mindless marketers. But hey, it was good for a rant.  In return, free advice to them: you don’t need Salesforce.com.  It won’t help you.

Update:  This post originally appeared almost a year ago .   The reason I am republishing it is that so did they.  They just resent the same dumb junk mail, verbatim, without the slightest change, despite my previous post and response to them.  How dumb is that?  Oh one more thing: through how many years can they be celebrating their 40th anniversary?  (hint: it was indeed last year).

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

post

Micro-chunking Software: Tibco and Zoho CEOs Sing the Same Song (Just from Different Notes)

puzzle This should probably be a Tweet, but I am not smart enough to squeeze it into 140 characters – perhaps Tumblr or Posterous notes?  Anyway, I am in a rambling mood – but I’ll keep it short, just pointing to stuff I read.  After all, there’s a reason why my personal blog has the tagline Connecting the dots. 🙂

The death knell is ringing for Customer Relationship Management (CRM) packages, according to Vivek Ranadivé, Tibco’s chairman and CEO.

“The enterprise 2.0 world we live in today is transaction based, but we are now entering an era where events will replace transactions. We will move from this world where we continually have to ask questions and seek information into one where the information will seek you.”

The technical enabler is the reduction of costs for solid-state memory and the arrival of larger multi-core processors – the result is software that reacts  to what we’re doing at any moment in time, instead of us pulling up big monolithic applications.

The other “dot” I’m connecting this to is a blog post by Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu:

One of the architectural themes that is driving our evolution is the focus on the user’s context and workflow and avoiding the context switch as much as possible. Context switching is expensive. It destroys the flow and rhythm of a users, and is a real productivity killer,  as I discussed with Larry Dignan of ZDNet last week…

…the boundary between apps tends to dissolve, as data flows contextually across apps. Apps move to the background, data and context start to dominate. In the cloud world, data is not the slave of any particular application, but flows to whichever context that needs it.

My take: CRM?  I don’t even know what it means anymore… just ask Paul Greenberg about the ever expanding definition of Social CRM. It’s certainly not just one application.  Same for ERP.  Or Office, for that matter.

Applications will go away.  Instead, we’ll have functions.  Functions that sense what we are doing and offer up the right options – based on both data and perhaps our own activity profile (example: looking at a table – some might process it with a spreadsheet, others prefer a database or word processor).  Or just self-acting agents.  Micro-chunked functions served up software. I first discussed the concept two years ago.

Now, isn’t this in sharp contrast to what I said about Application Suites?  No: first of all, that was a market-reality based view vs. visioning here. Second, it’s Suites are not necessarily monolithic giants, it’s about the integration of apps, bringing the right micro-functions available to the user at the right time in the right context, no matter what the “App” is called, and doing it all in a unified UI environment.  Read more on the componentization of software here.

Wow.  This is definitely not Twitter-sized. 🙂

(Disclosure: Zoho is CloudAve’s exclusive Sponsor)

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

post

FUD in the House of SaaS – More on Suites

Recently I wrote about the evergreen Best-of-breed vs. Integrated All-in-One Suite debate again, arguing:

Call me “old school”, but I also believe in the value of having one tightly integrated system for most business needs, and I believe it’s true not only for large corporations but much smaller businesses.  I don’t have CIO’s to back it up, but that’s exactly the point: I am talking about small businesses that don’t have CIO’s at all – in fact they  likely don’t even have full time IT stuff ( a good reason for SaaS in the first place), so they clearly lack the bandwidth to deal with integration issues and multiple system providers.

It wasn’t just hypothetical speculation, what really prompted my post ( and hence the reference to CIOs) was a study conducted by Brian Sommer who contacted several large corporate CIOs about SaaS implementations, and found that despite improvements in technology, and easy integration by firms like Boomi, Pervasive ..etc, CIOs still prefer to buy an integrated suite of applications and deal with one vendor for most of their needs.   It’s not what we think, it’s what they do – and they are the customers.  Says Brian:

But, customers will do what customers want to do.

Amen. But my post attracted a detailed comment from a PR professional (a fact that took a little digging to discover):

… the Suite approach requires the business to make compromises in areas of the business, and only works if you can run your whole business on that one suite – as soon as you need some other specialist system, or acquire another operation that you need to integrate, you’re in trouble because Suites, by definition, are not designed to make integration easy…

…Force.com essentially brings cloud apps together as a Suite by offering exactly the combination of tight integration, common interface and flexibility. Many businesses can already find everything they need on the platform, even the last critical element required for a serious business system: enterprise-class finance 😉 Many companies, especially smaller ones, don’t need a full ERP suite. They need a handful of critical applications that can grow with them.

Wow… where do I even start?   Perhaps by the only statement I can agree with:

Many companies, especially smaller ones, don’t need a full ERP suite. They need a handful of critical applications that can grow with them.

Yes, of course I agree.  In fact I am a small business myself, and guess what, not only I don’t need ERP, I don’t even need or use a CRM system, or one for business accounting.  The only lightweight business system I use is invoicing (happens to be Zoho Invoice), but frankly, I could get away without it.  Yes, some small businesses will want Accounting, and Accounting only, others will need CRM and nothing else – there are many good choices for them. And yes, FinancialForce.com (which the commenter represents) is great, and we’ve given it ample coverage @ CloudAve.

But that’s where reality ends, and plain old FUD begins. There’s nothing inherent in the “Suite approach” that would prevent customization, integration with additional systems, extension by third party apps.  In fact the key difference between an integrated Suite or discrete  point applications is just how much of the core business they cover natively before  add-ons are required.

And here’s the ultimate irony: I was reading these “ex-cathedra” statements (that’s nicer words for BS) while sitting at NetSuite’s SuiteCloud conference, that was all about working with development partners, releasing a new version of SuiteCloud, the app development and integration platform along with SuiteFlow, a graphical modeling and customization tool, and a bunch of other  announcements all geared to making and maintaining a thriving partner ecosystem, that builds on the core NetSuite functionality and delivers additional value to customers.

In fact the evening before the conference, CEO Zach Nelson spent an hour busting industry myths.  Now look at the slide above: he did not talk about NetSuite specifically, he was advocating Cloud Computing / SaaS in general.  That’s the somewhat usual formula:  myth spread by defenders of the “old model” busted by the innovators – who would have expected the old-time FUD served up by a PR flak for another SaaS provider… 🙁

At the conference itself I saw several customers presentations, like that of Campus Villages which replaced 38 instances of MYOB + Intuit MRI with NetSuite OneWorld, including extensions like Nolan Fixed Assets and Electronic Payments, Celigo Smartclient, and are currently evaluating Adaptive Planning.   Those are functions not provided by NetSuite, so guess what – they add third party apps, just like they would to Coda or any other system.

The key criteria for any software company trying to penetrate the SMB market will be vertical industry epxerience, and NetSuite has clearly stated their industry experience is Software and Services – everything else is open to the ecosystem.  Case in point is manufacturing:

NetSuite RootStock MRP

Suites are not customizable?  Just look at  Rootstock, a third-party developer house that created an entire MRP system on the  SuiteCloud platform.  If that’s not living proof of the system’s expandability, then I don’t know what is…

A key difference between the Force.com / Appexchange and NetSuite / SuiteCloud approach is that the former facilitates the creation of any product / utility that you can pick up from a marketplace, while programs developed on SuiteCloude all tie into the NetSuite system very closely – not only on the data but also on the UI level – i.e. the additional business functionality becomes available within the NetSuite UI. In other words they run so smoothly, the fact that parts of the system were written by a 3rd party is hardly transparent to the end user – which is just the way it should be.

So in the end, there is no hard rule that says Suites are inflexible, non-expandable: there only well-written and poorly written Suites, just like well-written and poorly-written point applications.  There will be businesses who only need a few point apps, and should not think of a Suite, and others who will benefit from the All-in-One approach.  It’s their choice.  What they need is honest information, not FUD.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

post

Are Suites Really Sour? The Best of Breed vs. Integrated Suite Debate.

The evergreen Best-of-breed vs. Integrated All-in-One Suite debate is back again. This will be a somewhat long post, so let’s sit back and start with some entertainment first.

Episode 2, “Suites Are Sour”  is from the mini-series SuiteMates, which I admit I find hilariously entertaining, albeit rather pointless.  Why?  It’s run by supply chain solution provider Kinaxis, but I don’t see much direct benefit to them. I’m reminded the Bill Gates – Seinfeld commercials: what’s the point?  But hey, we’re being entertained:-)

Now, back to those Suites.. are all Suites really Sour?  Fellow Enterprise Irregular Brian Summer clearly does not think so, his money is on the Suites, here’s why:

One of the biggest value drivers behind a customer’s move to SaaS is the reduced internal IT support cost a company has when using SaaS products. In the SaaS world, the vendor maintains the application not the customer. But, in a best of breed SaaS world, the customer is back to maintaining interfaces and integration aspects across a number of (SaaS) applications.

If the argument sounds familiar, it is – it was the same in the good old on-premise world, but much of it holds true in the Cloud, too.  Besides, this isn’t simply Brian’s own opinion, he has conducted a poll of large corporate CIO’s and most expressed strong preference for integrated business solutions, a.k.a.  “one throat to choke” (well, not exactly with those words…).

Call me “old school”, but I also believe in the value of having one tightly integrated system for most business needs, and I believe it’s true not only for large corporations but much smaller businesses.  I don’t have CIO’s to back it up, but that’s exactly the point: I am talking about small businesses that don’t have CIO’s at all – in fact they  likely don’t even have full time IT stuff ( a good reason for SaaS in the first place), so they clearly lack the bandwidth to deal with integration issues and multiple system providers.

This is not a popular view, after all the Millenial World View is all about open standards and APIs where best-of-breed cloud services that can seamlessly integrate and work together well.  I’m all for innovation, and hope we will get there one day – but for now the existing examples are all one-off, individual integrations between specific systems, or at best, ecosystem “satellites” centered around force.com, the Google Apps Marketplace and the like.  These are great solutions, but not enough to run a complete business on them.  In the meantime businesses are looking for available (Cloud-based) solutions NOW.  So yes,  I admit, my view is less visionary, more constrained by market realities today.

Brian cites WorkDay as a potential SaaS Suite provider: they have the right DNA, coming from the Founder who built once-successful PeopleSoft, and they are building truly Millenial Software from the grounds up as Phil Wainwright eloquently points out – but for now they still have a Human Resources / Finance focus only.  Far from a complete solution, just like the other successful SaaS players in the Enterprise arena, like SuccessFactors, RightNow, ServiceNow, and the like.

Yes, I hear you… I missed a big name: Salesforce.com, the GrandDaddy of SaaS or the Cloud or whatever the next fashionable name will be.  An amazingly successful company, and true innovators – having started as CRM company, moving on to as Platform provider, and who knows, tomorrow it may be a Media company? 🙂  As long as the keep on moving to hot new areas, always picking the low-hanging fruit, the company and it’s stock price will remain hot.  Again, a great company from an Investor’s point of view.  Just not a Complete Business Solution.

One and a half SaaS Suite players

I can count the number of SaaS Business Suites that actually reached significant traction on one hand.  In fact the exact number is 1.5.  Yes, one and a half – and for now they mostly cater for the SMB segment, with undeniable ambitions to “grow up”.

netsuite The “One” in  that 1.5 is NetSuite.  Having started as NetLedger, the company has developed an integrated All-in-One solution, encompassing ERP, CRM, e-Commerce .. you name it.  Those acronyms are becoming quite useless – in that respect I agree with Dennis Howlett who says we should “dump the  disciplines formerly known as CRM/SCRM/SCM/ERP/3PL/HR/HCM/E2.0….etc” – hence I stick to the term All-in-One. Or Business Suite:-)  It’s been a long (and winding?) road for NetSuite: developing a full suite of apps you can run a business on is by far more complex than throwing out point applications.

The company also learned the hard way that with business complexity (please note, I am not talking about Software, but Business complexity) comes a more difficult, stretched out sales process.  The fact is, as much as I am a fan of the click-to-try-click-to-buy pull model, the more business areas (and stakeholders) are involved, the less feasible the fully pull model becomes.  A Business Suite is not something you simply pick up from an App Store:-)
So NetSuite experimented with more direct sales model first, gradually building towards a more channel-based model, to the recently announced SP100 program in which partner VARs get the entire first year subscription revenue.  Along the way they grew functional richness as well as market penetration, to the point that they often compete with Enterprise giant SAP directly.  Now, let’s quickly qualify that: NetSuite is not comparable to the SAP Business Suite, but it is often an ideal satellite solution for smaller divisions of large companies, many of which just got acquired and are facing the choice of a long SAP implementation vs. a SaaS solution from NetSuite (see Ray Wang’s post on two-tier ERP strategy)

I should probably mention that way back, before their IPO and the fame that came with it (from the times of NetWho?) I was an early NetSuite customer, picking it over the market leading CRM (and I mean that as a stock symbol), simply because it had a better process flow, even for Sales, which I was heading at the time. (Yes, we got p***ed learning we’d have to create Sales Orders outside the other system, even though we had quotes in the system, only to come back and re-enter the data manually).  NetSuite was simply a better CRM system, even before considering other business areas.

Parallel to our NetSuite implementation we introduced a Wiki, JotSpot, which just launched in those days (since acquired by Google) and soon we realized a lot of the support information for Sales could either reside in NetSuite or in the Wiki.  This has been bugging me ever since:

Why do structured, process-oriented systems and unstructured  collaboration tools live in different worlds?

Like I’ve said, I’m all for Suites, but the true Suite in my definition includes integrated collaboration and communication tools – I’m still waiting for that … perhaps not for long 🙂

Now, if NetSuite was the “one”, who is the “half”?   It’s SAP’s very capable, but dormant Business ByDesign – which may just come to life later this year.  But I’ve been torturing you long enough, so let’s leave that to another discussion.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve)

post

Here’s How Not to Use CRM: Dumb Campaigns

The best CRM system can’t help you if your sales / marketing team is clueless.  Here’s a ridiculous email I’ve just received.  Name removed to protect the (not-so) innocent

X. Y. kindly requests a meeting

Hi Zoli,

In celebrating our 40th anniversary, I’ve been given the privilege to manage the relationship between your organization and Communispond. When you have a moment, please take a look at the information below. Kindly let me know if it’s out of date, and the best way to reach you. I wish to be respectful of your time and patience.

Campaign

Is your organization prepared with the communication tools and behaviors (presenting, selling, coaching, persuading, etc) to achieve greater success in 2010? I would like to hear your thoughts and ideas on any communication challenges you anticipate, and see if we can help. Please let me know if you’d be willing to meet with me – either conference call or face to face. l greatly appreciate your consideration.

Warm Regards,
X. Y.

What’s wrong with this email campaign?  A few things… where should I even start?

Obsolete data: we all know this is a disease that plagues many (CRM) systems, but this one is extreme.  The data shown on this business card never existed in such combination, but bits and pieces did.  Yes, I participated in SAP’s International Consultant Training – exactly 20 years ago, so they must have picked it up from a very-very ancient resume. (It also means I understand Charlie’s joke…).  Yes, I did work at SAP America, when they were a tiny outfit with 70+ employees, and the Newton Square HQ listed above was not even a dream.

Data errors do happen – but how on Earth could they dump 20-year old, pre-CRM, pre-ERP, pre-everything data into a CRM system?

Now let’s focus on content.  The title, specifically.  That’s the marketer’s opportunity to grab attention – or lose it.  Time is money, and most of us don’t have a lot to waste – why on Earth would I want to meet a stranger without any previous contact or knowing the intent?

You just don’t send out an initial contact request asking for a purpose-less meeting.

Anyway – this email is in its well-deserved place in my Spam folder and Communispond is flagged as mindless marketers. But hey, it was good for a rant.  In return, free advice to them: you don’t need Salesforce.com.  It won’t help you.

(Cross-posted @ CloudAve )

post

Salesforce.com: Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty?

Is Salesforce.com’s glass for SMBs half full (of lemonade)  or half empty?  I borrowed the lemonade metaphor from Venturebeat’s post announcing Salesforce.com’s new Contact Manager offering for (very) small businesses.

On second thought we should use orange juice as a metaphor – as in disappearing orange juice, by Tropicana which offers less juice in a redesigned pitcher for the same price, and even tries to sell it as a benefit to consumerssmile_angry

Salesforce.com “pulled a Tropicana” with the announcement of their $9 Contact Management edition, and the funny thing is, nobody seems to have noticed it. No, the media duly buys what Salesforce.com PR sells, welcoming the new edition as “giving something back to the little guy” , “breaking through a price barrier”, “making it affordable for SMBs to get in the Cloud”.

Nobody bothered to do some fact-checking, which would have unveiled that in the new Edition is in fact offering less for the same price, a’la Tropicana.  Salesforce.com has pulled off a price increase and it went largely unnoticed.

sforce1Prior to this announcement the lowest-priced edition of Salesforce CRM, the Group Edition was priced at $9 per user per month, and it is now increased to $35.   The few media outlets that noticed this refer to it as temporary promotion for August, that has now expired.   Let’s see just how temporary it was: the “promo” started not in August but in June, and not in 2009, but 2008.

sforce2

This promotion was supposed to expire in July of last year, but it did not – and I correctly predicted it would transition into a permanent price-cut, without much fanfare.  Indeed the $9 pricing lasted over a year.  And just for the record, prior to dropping the price to $9, CRM Group Edition had cost $20 – so the $35 new price is definitely not just ending a promotion, it’s a price hike of several notches.

But forget history, let’s look at value: having a Contact Manager functionality is certainly useful, although I suspect Google Apps (which is integrated with this Salesforce.com offering) will also offer enhanced Contacts functions.   Still, nice – for 2 users only, as that’s the maximum number  allowed for this edition.  Talk about 2-person companies, let’s remember that Salesforce.com used to offer a free single-user Personal Edition CRM.  I’ve just checked my dormant account, it’s still working – but the offering is no longer available for new users.

So let’s see: from free CRM for one user, later $9 CRM up to five users, we’ve gone to $9 Contact Manager for two users.  Quite an improvement.smile_sad

Now if you have 3 users, the lowest entry point to Salesforce.com is now Group Edition at $35 per person = $105 vs. the previous price of $27.   And if you have 6 users, you no longer qualify for Group Edition, your entry point now is Professional Edition at $65 per user.

Oh, well.  Math lesson over, it’s a nice sunny morning, time for my glass of OJ ( not half full, not half empty – just full.smile_tongue)

(Disclosure: I’m Editor of CloudAve, a group blog sponsored by Zoho.  This article is cross-posted there.)