Salesforce.com Exposed -
Advantages - Disadvantages

Salesforce.com Key advantages include:

• Strong market leadership.
  SFDC is a marketing powerhouse and the poster child for Software as a Service (SaaS). The company poured $376 million in aggressive advertising, marketing, sales and media in 2007.
   
• Industry leading help and online training support.
   
• A native thin-client solution designed for on-demand Internet delivery.
   
• Simple user interface that is well received by users new to online systems.
   
• Multiple industry specific or vertical market solutions – although somewhat light in terms of deep functionality.
   
• The AppExchange provides a foundation for extending the SFDC solution with deeper functionality from fee-based specialist application providers.

Salesforce.com Key disadvantages include:

• Overly simple user interface that is quickly outgrown by experienced
  users.
   
• Lots of screen refreshes and scrolling up and down; the transition between multiple screens to process transactions can deliver a tedious experience.
   
• Marketing management functionality is extremely limited. SFDC points to partner applications for this purpose. This involves additional costs and vendor management.
   
• Customization toolkits can be cumbersome to use, even to many seasoned administrators.
   
• Dashboards may not reflect the application security for specific users
  without significant administration effort.
   
• No Service Level Agreement provided in standard contract.
   
• Data center reliability has been questioned and several major interruptions in service have been widely publicized.

Free: Complete Report – Salesforce.com Exposed