Comments on: SaaS integration easier said than done

By: Mark Silber

Mark Silber — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:25:23 +0000

As an IT system architect for a large company, I have extensive experience with Salesforce.com and integration. Although it’s “in the cloud”, it doesn’t necessarily mean integration will be more difficult than with an on-premise application since a lot depends on your integration strategy. For example, if your integrations are primarily at the database level using direct database connections (i.e., PL/SQL), then integration will be difficult without an integration tool that sits between Salesforce and your database (CastIron, Relational Junction, etc.). However, if your integrations are more modern SOAP / web services or TIBCO, then integration to Salesforce will in most cases be easier due to the very open and robust API Salesforce provides. There have been a lot of misconceptions about integrating with Salesforce versus an on-premise application like Siebel. My experience over the last few years has shown integrations are actually easier — not harder with Salesforce than our previous on-premise CRM system.

By: Steve Roehm

Steve Roehm — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 02:29:07 +0000

As an ex-CIO, I can understand that all of us have made mistakes on migrations (and unfortunately will probably continue to do so), but your description of the issues makes me think that the “buyers” needed to ask more questions (remember the age old phrase – “buyer beware”) about integration and adjust accordingly based on the answers (or non-answers) they received….Migration to new software is always challenging, but stating that process changes are the biggest challenge, or that the teams should have done a sample data move unfortunately makes me think that the CIO’s adopting SaaS should have done a bit more homework. That said, I am not giving the vendors (Salesforce, OpenAir, or Seibel) a “pass” — they clearly could have been more helpful, but I learned early on as a CIO that you take nothing for granted, ask way more questions than would seem normal, and then still plan for a VERY challenging migration with contingency built in…..I hope all goes well for these panelists as SaaS does hold great current and future potential for all involved.