Salesforce.com applied cloud computing in several ways. One of these ways included the use of contemporary Saleforce.com web site that focused on cloud computing and grading of commodities into three basic forms of clouds, namely; custom clouds, sevice cloud and sales cloud.
The firm applied both Sales and Service clouds in enhancing client related services. The firm also utilized the Force.com to enable its clients comes up with personal applications for utilization within the wider firm’s network. That is the Force.com offered both IT services and tools that gave clients the capability to tailor their customer relationship management applications.
The firm also collaborated with Amazon to allow its clients exploit Amazon’s cloud computing services that controlled cloudburst computing functions of the Force.com applications that needed additional processing power and storage ability. The firm also offered a platform that enabled its clients come up with and ran business softwares and websites that were five times faster and at the partial cost of non-cloud options.
Notable challenges experienced by the Force.com included heightened competition from both conventional industry leaders and contemporary companies that attempted to copy the firm’s success. The firm also faced the challenge of demonstrating to its clients that it was dependable and safe enough to manage their corporate data and applications remotely. The firm had service outages that had immensely affected the clients’ transactions.
The firm also experienced the challenge of becoming equal and also reaching the market share of its larger rivals such as IBM and SAP. Lastly, the firm experienced the challenge of security breach through the hacking of the corporate passwords. These exposed its clients to authentic torrent of highly beleaguered scams and hacking trials (Velte, Velte, Velte, & Elsenpeter, 2009).
In order to resolve the challenges, Salesforce.com provided tools to guarantee clients about its system dependability and also consequently provided personal computer applications into the firm’s service that enabled clients to work offline thereby eradicating the problem of frequent outages. In order to cushion its clients from security threats such as hacking, the company together with the clients’ security auditors conducted regular security checks. Lastly, the firm also initiated its own social media platform through an application known as chatter that enabled its staff generate profiles and updated the firm’s status that apppeared on the clients’ profiles (Benioff, Carlye Adler, & Benioff, 2009).
Organizations that stood to benefit from shifting to Salesforce.com included software creating firms, publishers and firms that required constant updating and upgrading of softwares. This was solely because the use Salesforce services reduced the overall costs of having to set up a server and the subsequent costs of maintenance and management. Salesforce provided over 950 software applications to clients (Baun, Kunze, Nimis, & Tai, 2011).
In deciding whether to use Salesforce.com for my business, I would take into deliberation factors such as the requirement for servers and the consequent costs of operation. I would also consider the security of data and lastly the cost of software in the long run.
According to Baun, Kunze, Nimis and Tai, an organization could not run its entire operations through Salesforce.com and AppExchange due to constant threats from hackers and outages. It was noted that an attack on one client affected all clients due to use of the same server. Therefore business could not rely on cloud computing (175).
References:
Baun, C., Kunze, M., Nimis, J., & Tai, S. (2011). Cloud Computing: Web-based Dynamic It Services. New York City, U.S: Springer.
Benioff, M., Carlye Adler, C. A., & Benioff, ,. M. (2009). Behind the Cloud: The Untold Story of How Salesforce.com Went from Idea to Billion-Dollar Company–And Revolutionized an Industry. Hoboken, New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons,.
Velte, T., Velte, A. T., Velte, T. J., & Elsenpeter, R. C. (2009). Cloud Computing, A Practical Approach. New York City, U.S.: McGraw-Hill Prof Med/Tech.