"Don't overestimate your platform"

Hasso Plattner of SAP and Marc Benioff of salesforce.com squared off at the Churchill Club. And they focused in on each other's platforms.

Why are two of the leaders in business applications not discussing how their software will transform business processes? In healthcare, banking, shopping? Where is the excitement of how location aware technologies are changing business? What uses do they see for businesses with the iPhone and other mobile devices?

It is depressing to see two enterprise application leaders focus on platforms and architectures - tools to help others build applications when they are paid to deliver business applications.

Time to ask again "Whatever happened to "packaged applications"?"

Comments

[Phil Hodgen]

Hmm. Thinking about himself and the sheer fabulosity of his product. Thinking about the other dude and what a steaming heap of dung HIS product is.

Where am I? The customer? You know, the guy who writes the check to pay Mr. Benioff's salary?

There is one and only one thing that Messrs. Plattner and Benioff should be thinking about. When their customers wake up in the morning, they think "I gotta make some money!" If Salesforce and SAP aren't directly, totally, constantly focused on scratching that itch . . . . FAIL.

My business is too small for SAP, and Salesforce . . . . well, I did a test drive and apparently they don't know what the world looks like from my side of the keyboard. Except that they have astonishingly pushy salesmen.

@philiphodgen

[Gregory Yankelovich]

Very astute observation indeed! Perhaps these Chief Salesmen don't see themselves as providers of tools for Organizational Transformation? Could this represent a disconnect between their Sales and Marketing messages?