Saturday, May 09, 2015

Dear IBM, HP, ORACLE, SAP, CISCO ... v2.0

Dear IBM, HP, ORACLE, SAP, CISCO ...

Since my last letter, we have heard it is not Oracle or SAP or Microsoft that is interested in buying Salesforce. Maybe that's just bluster, maybe no-one is interested in buying (or merging) or maybe it's one of you or maybe it's someone irrelevant. All of these are good options for you.

However, on the off chance that someone is actually bidding for Salesforce and it's not any of you. Can I kindly suggest you consider getting together in order to buy it between you as a consortium. 

There is one company (Amazon) that you should not want to get their hands on Salesforce no matter how unlikely the possibility is.  You should examine the value chains that Salesforce is involved in, compare this to Amazon and consider how Amazon could bring its ecosystem experience whilst exploiting the enterprise position of Salesforce. You should consider what Amazon already knows about the platform business of Heroku (through consumption data). You should review what combination possibilities exist and WHERE your own inertia can be used against you.

Even if it is highly unlikely, the remote possibility of this pairing should be sending shivers down your spine. You do not want to find yourself in this position. Hence, unless you have information to the contrary, I would consider doing something about it.

Maybe you'll be lucky. Maybe it's someone irrelevant. Maybe it's no-one.

This is a friendly warning.

Kindest

Simon W

P.S. I've been harping on about this threat for many years. I know it's unlikely but if I was Bezos then this is the move that I'd make.