So, I figured everyone had blogged their hearts out for the NA14 “issue” but as much as I cheer lead for SF, I figured I needed to jump in when bad stuff happens.  I saw an article today saying that some customers lost data when the NA 14 disruption happened.

No, a little cheerleading – Salesforce is never down (on a non scheduled basis), and so this is a first time occurrence (or certainly the first time in almost 10 years), but I think there are 3 factors that make this SO much worse than the usual disruptions (Amazon, Google, etc.)

1 – The lost data.  This makes it much worse, since essentially no one knows what they lost or when exactly they lost it.  SF is always up, so no one really makes much of a big deal about redundant client based backups, so really, that data is just gone…

2 – SF’s response- as the customer company, I was underwhelmed on the response – the whole “email me at ceo@…” thing sounded great, until a couple of our customers said they got canned responses and no replies.  Even when things are bad, it seems like they went all market-y and kind of missed the point – when things are bad, be humans – and get involved – don’t do the usual “Customer is always right” platitudes and then disappear behind “trust.” and the rest…

3 – You can’t change the past, but customers – real customers were truly harmed by this event.  It’s time to pony up, and to date, no indication of that is there…

So, eventually this comes down to trust – like the original batman movie, “who you gonna trust”.  I know the Salesforce team, not the execs but the worker bees, and they are big time into making sure this is right.  I just think they have to acknowledge that this happened, and that they are addressing it.  Otherwise, this 3rd rate burglary becomes Watergate. It’s not the event, it’s after the event that ultimately makes the difference…

That’s my take anyway.  comments welcome.