Cowen Slams Salesforce
Peter Goldmacher got downright curmudgeon-ly on Salesforce.com in a recent Cowen & Co. research note. Peter believes Salesforce.com faces a questionable future – and that for reasons he never explains, Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft will now suddenly be competitive with the firm. Too bad analyst reports can’t receive “star ratings” like books do on Amazon.com.
As for me, I’d like to understand what “imminent competition” the big boys will be offering Salesforce – given that Marc Benioff has made the company’s primary mission to go replace failing Siebel implementations – and he has seemed to find runaway success at doing just that.
At some point, you’d have to acknowledge Salesforce as the “market leader in CRM software people actually use.” And at that point, you have to start finding reasons for people to switch from Salesforce to something else.. Why would they?
Maybe there’s some new strategy afoot here – either in Redwood Shores, Walldorf, or Redmond – something that Peter is privy to that the rest of us don’t see. But Salesforce.com growth numbers seem to paint a far different picture – one where it’s the big boys who are struggling to keep pace with Salesforce.com market share gains. In fact, Salesforce.com is on the verge of moving up a weight class itself.
