SAP and Salesforce Executive Spar in Software Debate
Benioff mocked SAP for losing out on a bid for chemicals company DuPont with SAP's CRM Online, its first attempt at on-demand software.
"I'm not criticizing the moderator, but we don't stick to the question," Plattner grumbled. "Why did they win Dupont? Because we had a shitty CRM system."
"Forget about the little ill-fated CRM Online," he said later.
"Your customers won't forget about it," Benioff quipped.
Benioff said enterprise software should no longer be only for big, rich companies, and said venture capitalists no longer write checks for software companies. "They're all software as a service," he said.
Plattner argued that Salesforce.com isn't powerful enough to make its platform a de-facto standard, as Microsoft did with Windows.
At least one commentator declared Benioff the winner of the debate "by nontechnical knockout (no references to in-memory database systems)." A blog devoted to SAP ran a piece titled "Benioff v Plattner: let history decide."
"As in all debates," it said, "there was a great temptation to name the winning debater rather than the winning position."
