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While enterprise software giants SAP and Oracle struggle to figure out a way to compete against Salesforce.com for mid-sized businesses, the software-as-a-service pioneer is moving ahead on an entirely new front. The company announced this week that is introducing a new contact manager product for individuals and very small businesses, starting at a price point as low as $9 per month per user.
The Contact Manager Edition offering allows small businesses or individuals to store and manage their contact information in the cloud. It also features the ability to track email communications from Microsoft Outlook, Google Gmail and Yahoo Mail accounts, and allows users to run pre-configured or customized accounts. It also comes pre-integrated with Google Apps, providing access to Google’s suite of applications for calendaring, shared documents, spreadsheets, and presentations.
It’s an interesting play for Salesforce which has already proven it can generate big returns by thinking smaller than its ERP rivals. In its most recent quarter the San Francisco company reported a 20% gain in revenue while most other software companies battled to keep revenues from falling by double-digits.
At $9 per user, it isn’t exactly going to blow the doors off the bank with this initiative. But then again, by getting businesses and entrepreneurs to start using its services in the early stages, it has a good opportunity to gain their loyalty and eventually upgrade them to more full-featured – and pricier editions of its products down the road.
Salesforce may face a challenge in marketing to mom-and-pop shops, but there are a large number of professionals out there who have been laid off and are restarting their careers, who will be familiar with the company and its services. That could prove to be fertile ground for such an offering.
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