Salesforce.com Eyes Data-Sharing Service
"If Salesforce's blog post is any indication, the company is likely prepping a set of tools that will build cross-client data sharing into its applications -- in a way that goes well beyond its current 'partner relationship management' add-ons," Carr wrote.
Salesforce.com already allows customers to buy partner licenses for sharing data with other companies in their supply chain. The new service appears to broaden that from a "one to many" to a "many to many" sharing model, said David Bradshaw, a principal analyst with Ovum.
Difficulties arise when customers want to share data with companies using a different software system, such as Oracle's Siebel CRM On Demand, Bradshaw said. Salesforce.com may hope the data-sharing service will compel more companies to sign up for its service, or it could act more openly and allow other CRM systems to take part in the data sharing, he said.
