A virtual Silicon Valley in the making

Nandita Singh






SINGAPORE: “A virtual Silicon Valley is in the making,” stated Marc Benioff,
chairman & CEO, SalesForce.com.






Benioff is the man who is leading the “virtual Silicon Valley movement” from the
front. His company SalesForce.com provides a platform AppExchange, which can be

used by developers across the world to create their own applications without

incurring huge cost of buying the platform for application development.






The company under Benioff's leadership has recognized the wave in time. “This is
an idea whose time has come,” said Benioff.






He was addressing the audience at the iDA Distinguished Speakers Series here.







It is the Web 2.0. “Just imagine you don't need to incur a high total cost of
ownership in buying the software and installing it. The era of software as we

know it has ended,” said Benioff. He elaborated that the future is “On Demand”

software with just about any application available off the web in real time.






The movement from “Consumer Web” to “Business Web” is picking up steam and there
are converts willing to give Microsoft the “boo”. It is decidedly not an SMB

phenomenon, Benioff said, counting Cisco as one of its largest converts.






The “Business Web” is changing the way software is distributed. The “On Demand”
plug-in software is quick-and-easy to deploy, highly economical and allows

meta-customization flexibility. It is available as and when you want it for a

subscription fee and the user can customize it to fit the organization needs.








In 2005, reportedly, Mircosoft sat up, took notice of SalesForce.com and other
companies like it and actually revised its strategy to offer software as a

service and is now offering windows live. This was said to be Microsoft's major

strategy revision in the last five years.






However, small players with zero legacy baggage have moved faster and you have a
number of such players comprising the Business Web. Just like the “Consumer Web”

comprising Amazon and eBay the Business Web allows a developer to create and

publish applications on ISV standards and then run, integrate and deliver these

everywhere in a secure and scalable environment.






Giving a sneak peek into the potential of the Business Web, Benioff demonstrated
“Mash-ups” — two independent web services get integrated to form a third

independent service.






SalesForce.com has collaborated with Google under its early access to code
program and demonstrated how Google Maps and SalesForce.com talk to each other

and publish a third applications which maps SalesForce.com offices at various

geographic locations and presents the information in a easy-to-absorb visual.

This is just one of the possibilities.






The company is getting aggressive in reaching out to the Asia Pacific region. On
the agenda, later this year, is establishing presence in India in Bangalore.






(SalesForce.com hosted the author in Singapore)





© CyberMedia News