So they see this young upstart (read SF 10 years ago) and instead of ignoring it, hoping against hope that they “just go away”, or worse, dismissing them as a fad, they take action, spend some cash, and take care of business.  I’m a partner (as you know) and I’m always nervous that SF is gong to get Fat and Happy – like everyone before them, IBM, Microsoft, Apple (the first time) Nokia (who?), on and on and whenever they do something this tough and “upstart”, I just feel alot better.

To catch you up, SFDC bought RelateIQ, an upstart “relationship Intelligence” tool that essentially collates and coordinates all of your interaction (emails, calls, texts, social etc.) into a coherent view of the person/company.  It’s something SFDC was dipping into with social contacts and the like, but this takes it to a whole new level.  It basically lets you prioritize your pipeline with external info as opposed to hunches.  Kind of slick.

I think SFDC will eventually use the IP to make the base tool better, but at least in the meantime, we partners can stop hearing about RelateIQ as the next SFDC….   read this article for a little more context.

http://diginomica.com/2014/07/14/upstart-early-shows-marc-benioff-tom-siebel/