Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO
Position: 12 Last year: 30
Why? Championing software as a service
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This is the third appearance on the Agenda Setters list for CRM services company salesforce.com's founder and CEO, whose high point was number 10 in 2004.
In the past year, as well as leading a company that has gone from strength to strength, Benioff has continued to be one of the chief ambassadors for software as a service (SaaS), and has made big strides in creating converts to his cause.
In February, for example, salesforce.com secured a deal with investment bank Merrill Lynch for 25,000 users to use its on-demand CRM services.
In the past year, Benioff also made salesforce.com programming language Apex available to independent software developers. This has also meant that salesforce.com customers could use it to tailor their applications.
Benioff also offered to let developer teams using the code work in salesforce.com offices, and host applications to remove the overhead allowing businesses to focus on innovation.
And in the past month or so, salesforce.com launched a new SaaS CRM platform called Force.com, which makes it easier for businesses to develop their own apps, including the ability to create customer user interfaces for any device with web access.
Take a walk down memory lane - and find out who made the agenda setters poll in years past
"Blogging's definitely got to the point where there're enough mainstream consumers watching it for the top bloggers to be regarded as agenda setters."
Michael Smith,
Agenda Setters panellist
"Open source gets more important rather than being something that will get squeezed out of the enterprise."
Simon Briskman,
Agenda Setters panellist
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Content featuring Marc Benioff
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