September 29th, 2004
Salesforce.com moves into contact centers
Salesforce.com is extending its software-as-a-service model from sales force automation to contact centers and help desks. The company’s new supportforce.com service has similar pricing and the hosted application model of salesforce.com. Contact center gear makers, including Alcatel, Aspect, Avaya, Cisco, and Genesys have been lined up to support the supportforce.com launch. In keeping with the need to use the most current buzz-laden marketing terms, supportforce.com is described by the comany as ‘on-demand customer service.’ For $65 per user (or $125 for the ‘enterprise’ version), supportforce.com provides a somewhat customizable application with most of the customer service features that come with expensive enterprise-class client/server solutions through a Web interface. Oddly, the supportforce.com Web site is separate from salesforce.com, as if they were separate companies. What’s next? HRforce.com? SRMforce.com? Complianceforce.com? Financialforce.com? Whatever is next, CEO Marc Benioff’s company has proven to be an emerging force, or at least trendsetter, in the software industry.
