Salesforce.com aims to catapult itself beyond customer management to become the hub of on-demand business services—to help customers run their businesses entirely online.
How?
1. It is encouraging outside startups to develop online software that complements its own.
2. It is going beyond the arm's-length practices like offering limited access to programming interfaces and holding software developer conferences.
3. It will open an incubator for 32 startup companies, plus a few established partners that want satellite offices. They will create applications for Salesforce's AppExchange, a directory of online business services that work with Salesforce software, such as programs to run e-mail campaign programs and customer surveys.
4. It is holding biweekly colloquia on product management, on-demand technology, and the like.
5. The startups will be able to tap the knowledge of Salesforce people, learn from what other startups are doing, get leads on potential recruits, move faster into new markets
6. Salesforce's San Mateo incubator is intended to be the first of many, from Silicon Valley to Tokyo, London, India, and possibly Singapore.
7. A second phase with more startups is scheduled to open in the same building in June. With Incubator 2.0 it is trying to pluck the best of incubators and co-working facilities, where independent companies can share office facilities, Internet access, and tips on how to run their businesses better.
8. It is trying to be closer to the startups, remove some of their risks and remove the leading cause of death for startups - real estate.
9. It will avoid the pitfalls of incubators before the dot-com bust by not investing in these companies and charging them $20,000 a year for a small space. It will encourage them to develop software for the AppExchange.
History teaches us so much if we choose to learn
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