LinkedIn stitches together single pane of glass with Dell Boomi

September 18, 2013

Here’s the next in my series of interviews from VentureBeat’s CloudBeat, held last week in San Francisco.

After his panel, I got a chance to chat with Andres Bang, head of global sales and operations systems at Linkedin.  I talked to Andres about how they used Dell Boomi to integrate their cloud and on premise applications, along with their CRM platform SalesForce.

Andres told me, “Dell Boomi is doing to the integration industry what SalesForce did to the CRM industry 10 years ago,” hear what else he had to say:

Some of the ground Andres covers:

  • What Andres does and the goals of his group within LinkedIn
  • Looking for a way to expand their SalesForce platform with custom applications
  • Stitching together SalesForce, databases, tools and custom apps with Dell Boomi.  “Integrations which used to take months or years are now talking days or weeks.”
  • What specific apps and data types is LinkedIn using Boomi to connect to SalesForce to provide a “single pane of glass” for sales

More Cloudbeat videos to come

Stay tuned to this blog for interviews with

  • Luke Kanies — Puppet CEO
  • Joe Arnold – CEO of SwiftStack
  • Anand Iyengar – Founder of CloudVelocity

Extra-credit reading

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Chattin ’bout Chatter, The new new thing from salesforce.com

August 30, 2010

A couple of weeks ago a group from salesforce.com paid a visit to Dell.  Among other things, they came to discuss their new product “Chatter” that Dell has recently launched internally and who’s virtues Michael Dell has tweeted.  Among the salesforce crew was Sean Whiteley, VP of product marketing.  I was able to get some time between meetings with Sean and learn more about Chatter.

Some of the topics Sean tackles:

  • How Chatter has done since its launch on June 22.  What type of traction they’ve seen with customers.
  • How Chatter differs from other internal social media platforms (hint: not only can you follow people; records, objects and information within your business applications have feeds as well, e.g. your notified when a presentation changes or a sales deal you’re following moves to a different stage.)
  • How the idea of Chatter came up. What role chairman Marc Benioff and his use of Facebook played.
  • Currently Chatter is tied closely to CRM but it will be tied to other apps going forward.
  • They believe that many more folks will use Chatter than usesalesforce.com.

Extra Credit reading:

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Cloud Pioneer, Salesforce.com

April 29, 2010

Last month when I was out in the Bay Area for our launch, I stopped by the offices of salesforce.com.  I visited with some folks that I used to work with in a past life and then grabbed some time with Salesforce’s VP of product marketing, Sean Whiteley.

Here is what Sean had to say:

Some of the topics Sean tackles.

  • The idea behind salesforce.com (SFDC):  In 1999 founders Marc Benioff and Parker Harris looked at Amazon and wondered why businesses couldn’t manage and get insight into their customers with the same ease as they interact with their favorite website.
  • Given that SFDC is built on a model of “multitenancy” how do they address security concerns when they are brought up.
  • Force.com: what it is and how it came about.  Also the advent of AppExchange, where you can shop for applications that let you extend the cloud applications that you use to run your business.
  • What salesforce.com and Dell are doing together to address small and medium businesses:  providing a business in a box, helping organizations focus on their core business rather than IT.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Cast Iron: Integrating Cloud & on-premise Apps

January 30, 2010

One of the trickiest parts for SMB’s (or organizations of any size) who are utilizing cloud-based applications is integrating these apps with exisiting on-premise applications.   That’s where Cast Iron Systems, comes in.

Last month Chandar Pattabhiram, VP of Product & Channel marketing at Cast Iron visited Dell.  I met up with him to chat about the company and learn what they are up to.

Some of the topics Chandar tackles:

  • Cast Iron is the leader in connecting cloud-based applications with on premise enterprise apps (eg Oracle, SAP).
  • The company began by offering a pre-configured integration appliance.  They have since expand and now also offer a virtual integration appliance as well as the Cast Iron Cloud (integration as a service).
  • While their focus is on SaaS, they are partnering with leaders in each layer of the cloud to integrate cloud offerings with on premise apps:
    • SaaS: SalesForce, ADP
    • PaaS: Google, Force.com, Azure
    • IaaS: Dell
  • Cast Iron’s goal is to evolve to be the enterprise cloud integration platform, bridging the world of public, private and on premise applications.
  • Cast Iron provides the software underpinning Dell Integration Services.  These services allow SalesForce.com customers to extract data that has been locked in on premise apps and provides centralized visibility within SalesForce.com.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Force.com at Cloud Connect

February 9, 2009

Salesforce.com was one of the Platinum Sponsors at Cloud Connect.  I stopped by their booth and had a quick chat with Kavindra from developer marketing, Ash, a Force.com evangelist and Ryan a technical marketer.

To watch in High Quality: after clicking play, click the “HQ” button that will appear on the bottom.

Some of the topics Kavindra, Ash and Ryan Tackle:

  • Speed Geeking and Chalk Talks.
  • Why Force.com is great for building enterprise Apps.
  • Where to go to get started (hint: click here)

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

Live from Cloud Connect: David Berlind

January 22, 2009

Ok well maybe its not live but here’s a short (3:34) video I shot yesterday with David Berlind, the man behind Cloud Connect.  The conference kicked off Tuesday night and continues, as I type, until this evening.

To watch in High Quality: after clicking play, click the “HQ” button that will appear on the bottom.

This video was shot right in the middle of the “speed geeking” section yesterday where attendees visited nine different cloud demos being presented by the sponsors: Amazon Web Services, IBM, Mosso, Google, Right Scale and Salesforce.com.

In the Video David talks about

  • The idea behind Cloud Connect and whats going on
  • Where the cloud works best
  • His predictions for whats going to happen in the cloud space in ’09 (hint, watch out for the big boys).

But wait, there’s more…

If you’re interested in hearing more from Cloud connect Check back here over the next week since I’ll be posting about six more videos as well as an audio podcast with the founder of Google Apps.

Pau for now…

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Posted by Barton George

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