科技巨头希柏陨落启示录

    但是到了2001年，全球性的经济衰退不期而至。各家企业都开始全面削减开支，尤其是IT领域。而受危机影响最大的行业之一正是电信业，这也恰恰是希柏最大的收入来源。

    衰退期间，各行各业的企业客户关系管理项目都被无限期地搁置起来。曾参与这一项目的人员要么被辞退，要么被调往其他项目。

    SAP公司（SAP）、甲骨文和IBM公司（IBM）在这场衰退中也没能幸免。但是希柏系统对电信业的过分依赖却在一夜之间让它的收入遭受了重创，一连三年都没能缓过劲来，根本看不到出路何在。

    那么，为什么这场危机没有重创Salesforce呢？从1999年到2004年期间，Salesforce软件的主要销售对象是美国的小企业和那些大公司的特定部门，这些要么企业买不起、要么不想买“复杂的”企业级CRM系统。Salesforce的平均“用户数”（seat count，软件授权协议中计算用户数的说法——译注）是每家公司约24个。相比之下，希柏卖给大企业的都是复杂的产品线，它拥有5,000个客户和5,000,000个活跃的用户，也就是平均每个客户拥有1,000个用户。

    经济危机最严重的时候，各企业几乎没有IT员工可以安装希柏的应用。而Salesforce则无需IT人员——或者说只需要IT人员一点帮助就行——因此它能填补中小企业市场的空白，而希柏却难以轻易进入这个市场。

    希柏的产品主要是卖给大企业，同时它还拥有一支拿着高薪的庞大直销队伍。而Salesforce则主要是服务于中小企业市场的，它采取了灵活机动的内部电话营销，以及一支精简的电话销售团队。

    2005年，Salesforce公布的收入是1.76亿美元，而希柏的收入约为14亿美元。也就是说，希柏的体量是Salesforce的近八倍，而且很难改变商业模式。

    2005年，Salesforce的增长主要得益于中小企业市场的推动，而希柏却因为大企业需求下滑而备受拖累。2006年，Salesforce又从危机中杀出重围，填补了希柏留下的市场空白。

    2005年夏天，拉里•埃里森突然提出要收购希柏系统，致使希柏的复兴计划被迫中断。而希柏的董事会批准了这项收购。

    这两家公司的合并让Salesforce过去八年间在CRM市场实际上变得天下无敌。结果，Salesforce现在获得了可观的市场份额，最近又凭借一个叫“服务云”的产品开始进军呼叫中心市场。

    尽管马克•贝尼奥夫并没有开创这个市场，但确实在他的重新规划下，CRM和其他商业软件才能通过新型商业模式——“软件即服务”实现交付。就凭这一点，他就应该名利双收。

    However, in 2001, a global recession hit. Businesses began to cut back on expenses in all areas, but especially in IT. And, one of the industries most heavily affected by the recession was the telecommunications sector, Siebel's largest source of revenue.

    During the recession, enterprise customer relationship management projects across all industries were put on indefinite hold. The people who had been assigned to those projects were let go or reassigned to other projects.

    SAP (SAP), Oracle, and IBM (IBM) suffered through the recession as well. But Siebel Systems' reliance on telecom wreaked havoc on its revenues overnight, and it stayed that way for three years with no end in sight.

    Why didn't the recession hurt Salesforce? From 1999 to 2004, Salesforce primarily sold its software to small companies and divisions of larger companies across the U.S. that couldn't afford, or didn't want, a "complex" enterprise CRM system. The average seat count for Salesforce was around 24 per company. By contrast, Siebel sold into large enterprises with a complex product line and had 5,000 customers with 5,000,000 active seats, an average of 1,000 seats per customer.

    With the recession in full swing, there were few IT workers in place to install Siebel applications. Salesforce needed no IT -- well, very little IT -- and it was able to fill a gap in the small and medium size business market segment that Siebel could not easily move into.

    Siebel was optimized to sell to large companies and had on its roster a large, expensive direct sales team. Salesforce was built to go after the small and medium-size business market, with nimble internal telemarketing, and telesales teams.

    In 2005, Salesforce reported $176 million in revenue when Siebel recorded around $1.4 billion. Siebel was nearly eight times the size of Salesforce and could not easily change its business model.

    Through 2005, the growth of Salesforce was primarily fueled by its uptake in the small and medium-size business market, while Siebel was dragged down by a drop in demand from large companies. Salesforce came out on the other side of the recession in 2006, filling the void Siebel left behind.

    In the summer of 2005, Siebel's turnaround plans were interrupted by Larry Ellison's surprise offer to acquire Siebel Systems. Siebel's board approved the offer.

    The process of integrating the two companies left Salesforce virtually unopposed in the CRM market for the past eight years. As a result, Salesforce now has significant market share and recently entered the call center market with an offering called "service cloud."

    While Marc Benioff didn't create this market, he did reimagine how CRM and other business applications could be delivered via a new type of business model -- software as a service (SaaS). For that, he deserves to be recognized and rewarded.