Hacker News Reader

Comment by Japhy_Ryder | Hacker News Reader

Salesforce is a pile of garbage. I don't understand at all why it's so successful.

A few reasons. First is that developer's don't buy it, non-technicals do, and it's got serious vendor lock-in capability. The other reason is that an excel-formula-wizard-type user can basically google his/her way to building a CRUD app for the business - and it works for the most part. Those combined are a billion dollar company. Us developers might not like it, but it has huge business value one way or another.

I was on the train from Boston to New York one time, and a bunch of Salesforce employees (sales) were also in my car. Let me first say their sales team is relentless and never gives up. However, at one point they were speaking with a prospect about various integrations. It went something like:

> Sales Guy 1: "Is integration X available? Let me check. I luckily happen to be sitting next to one of our integration developers. Let me put you on hold for a brief moment."

> Sales Guy 1: "This wanker thinks he'll get the Ameritrade integration for free. We have that, right? What should I charge him?"

> Sales Guy 2: "Yeah. Just tell him you spoke with your developer, and that the integration is custom, and will take some development time. Keep him on hold for a second to make it seem like you are working for him."

> Sales Guy 1: (Eventually) "Thank you so much for your patience. I spoke with our developer. It's a tough integration and requires custom work, so it'll be an extra 12k. I hope you understand..."

Only 12k? Lucky guy.

I’m sure it probably was per user haha.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com