back to article Salesforce claims 'record' quarter record at Oracle and SAP's expense

Salesforce has claimed its “best ever” year opening - at the expense of Oracle and SAP - while committing a growing portion of its cloud to AWS. The SaaS provider bounced back into the black for the first three months of 2016, its fiscal 2017, reporting net income of $38m. Revenue was up 26.8 per cent to $1.91bn, leaving …

  1. Dr Who

    Isn't it ironic

    I am in general, and in contrast to much of the opinion expressed on the Reg, a fan of cloud and the opportunities, if used wisely, it offers. This though is a little ironic. The company that just irretrievably lost data for quite a lot of its US customers reports record sales because the competion is cr*p. Have you actually used SalesForce? I have, and it's a nightmare. If they're the best, the others must be truly tragic.

    1. Anonymous Curd

      Re: Isn't it ironic

      The alternatives *are* Oracle or SAP. Sure, you can technically run either of those in the cloud, but the licensing models are still the same as they were on-prem (i.e. impenetrable black magic) and more importantly their interfaces are still the same old JSP-looking junk they've been for the last 15 years.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Isn't it ironic

        Microsoft has the fastest growing CRM. At current rates, Salesforce and Microsoft will be one and two with some distance between them in a few years.... If this guy thinks Salesforce is bad, wait until you see Siebel. At least Salesforce is native browser. SAP is poor. The only reason people use SAP CRM is because it is wrapped into some larger ERP deal.

    2. smartypants

      Re: Isn't it ironic

      Behind the scenes, I imagine Salesforce are working out how to move away from Oracle. Perhaps on to AWS Aurora, their clever SQL-but-without-the-replication-nightmare technology. I bet AWS are going to be bending over backwards to land this particular scalp.

      (This is fun isn't it? It's a bit like being a royal commentator... you don't actually need any facts at all!)

      1. Nate Amsden

        Re: Isn't it ironic

        Maybe just to get better pricing on oracle.

        I came across this while trying to find out what happened to all the noise salesforce made on postgres a few years ago

        http://readwrite.com/2013/07/01/salesforcecom-abandoning-its-postgres-flirtation/

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Isn't it ironic

        It sounds like Salesforce is going AWS, but I bet they partner with Microsoft Azure as well... which seems strange as Microsoft is quickly becoming their largest competitor in CRM, but Salesforce and Microsoft just struck a big alliance... or they just say, we support AWS and Azure, here are the rate cards, do whatever you want. Play them off against each other to get the best pricing.

  2. TechYogJosh

    Do they take SFDC seriously?

    Irrespective of all SFDC's claim, its still a CRM company. Oracle and SAP never really had a meaningful CRM play. They were/are ERP companies and SFDC is not present in ERP at all. Therefore, they all may be targeting different markets but yes with some overlaps. It seems SFDC has done a better job in consumerizing its interfaces that are easy sell than an Oracle or SAP. More so the sales structure of SFDC and commissions are probably better or well aligned to the sales force objectives. The technology driving SFDC is nothing great or differentiated. Therefore, most innovation must be around "out hosting" CRM to avoid headache of infrastructure than meaningful value addition.

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