Obviously and rather sadly a big drawback of freemium services is lack of support. Before signing up for these services,you need to ask yourself a question: How long can I live without accessing my data?
If the answer is "Not very long" then you will have to crack open your wallet.
I'd like to hear the other side of the story as well. I certainly hope it's not true.
As a developer I'm worried that these open web platforms are not so open. I worry that my data will be hijacked, that my apps will be locked to one vendor, that my provider might be my main competitor.
Alas, everything I wrote is true, it exactly happened the way I describe in my post. To be honest, I haven't seen a platform with as myopic a strategy as Salesforce, not from Microsoft, not from Google, not from Facebook, not by a long shot, so their situation is a bit unique.
In fact, several months after those events happened, there were people on their team who were uncomfortable with Benioff's stance. They tried to get him to change his mind, to no avail - a second set of interactions happened where one of their execs tried to get us in to Force.com, but he was vetoed by Benioff himself much to his disappointment and frustration (he ended up leaving Salesforce, so he won't be impacted when I say this). It was only after all that happened that I decided to go public with this.
We still stand ready to integrate our suite, just as we do with Facebook, with Google single sign-on and so on. The key question stands: would they let Zoho play in their ecosystem? If not what is the meaning of being "open"?
After all, Benioff compares Salesforce's "openness" with Microsoft, but consider the contrast. AdventNet, the parent company of Zoho, sells most of its software on the Windows platform (like most software companies do, no surprise there). We didn't have to seek permission from Microsoft to create applications on Windows. I don't know the terms, but I bet Microsoft would let us play on the Azure cloud platform, because they know a thing or two about empowering third party developers. Google lets us offer their users the option to sign-in to Zoho using their Google ID. Google lets us integrate Gears for the offline version - they even gave us publicity when we finished the integration. Google APIs are open to any and all vendors, including Zoho, on equal terms.
Thank you for having the courage to hold Benioff personally accountable. I agree with your attitude and views. If your development HQ wasn't in India, I'd be asking you for a job.
Much that i appreciate Zoho, not sure it is a great idea to target specific individuals (especially those part of the competition). And there could have been better ways to may be highlight what apparently looks like a Salesforce's lock-in strategy.
When it is a single person responsible, why not? He is also responsible to NYSE:CRM shareholders, and scaring future partners away is not an alignment with a successful platform strategy.
If I earn $6.75mm, then pay tax on it, I have $5mm.
Then I have $5mm in the bank and go get a job and earn another $100k, I'm only taxed (via income tax) on that $100k.
Similarly, if I have $5mm in the bank and it earns me $100k, I'm only taxed (via capital gains) on that $100k.
They are parallel taxes... not taxing the same money. The $100k is either earned income or investment income, and the $6.75mm was only ever earned income.
With dividends, it's easy to see that they are double taxed, but is that wrong? Your regular paycheck is double taxed too... first with income tax and then (in most states) with sales tax. There is nothing inherently amoral about double taxation, although it is kind of annoying how it hides your total tax rate.
To me, the annoyance of capital gains taxes is that it creates an entirely parallel tax rate structure, adding complexity (like everything Congress does with the tax code). If capital gains were treated like normal income, and capital losses (up to a certain amount) were treated like normal deductions, then taxes would be a lot easier for most people to file.
Same goes with sales tax. The fact that the government has turned every retail business in the country into a tax collector was an enormous coup. The system is impractical and a pain for businesses, placing the burden on them to raise funds for the states. It's also a massively regressive tax. Due to the impractical implementation, you can't even try to fix the regressive nature. States really need to find a better way to fund themselves.
I do not understand why people make such a big deal of the "double taxation" argument specifically in the context of capital gains.
If I hire an employee, I have to pay payroll taxes on the salary I pay him or her, and then I also have to pay business taxes on the value that the employee gives to the company in the form of increased revenue. Is this "double taxation" also a cause for moral outrage?
yes. name something good that comes from federal taxes.
all of the things that I associate with good government (schools, firefighting, disaster preparedness, zoning, etc.) are all handled by state and local governments.
the vast majority of federal taxes go towards socialist pyramid schemes or a wasteful military that got so bored it had to attack iraq.
That's one of the many reasons I moved. What's funny is how self-important many of the people I met were even though paper shuffling & long job titles are the main currencies.
Morally wrong? Like how? Please look up "utilitarianism" and do some reading on ethics, social contracts, etc.
A statement like the one you made really needs further reasoning to back it up. You might even be correct - but just claiming something to be true doesn't make it so.
socialism is ideally utilitarian. in reality the only people who benefit are those who hold the regulatory power to grant or withhold public funding. all you wind up doing is concentrating power in the hands of those who get to decide what is "the greatest good".
I have no problems with double taxation. Just don't compare capital gains vs. Income tax. Which is what the blogger is doing. When in reality the equation is: Actual Tax Paid = (Income Tax + Capital Gains tax).
If you don't tax capital, then only the wealthy will own capital. Eventually the capital starts owning itself and then the people don't even own capital anymore.
Our tax system has to try and fix one of the fundamental flaws of capitalism -- the tendency for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer. Without a capital gains tax, this very worst aspect of capitalism becomes even more emphasized, as capital will last forever.
I sort of see what you're saying. But the States' poor now are better off than the States' middle class was in the 1800s. The problem is, this isn't close to true in many other countries.
> fundamental flaws of capitalism -- the tendency for the rich to get richer and the poor to get poorer
BS. Riches to shirtsleeves abound. Wealth rarely lasts three generations. Now, there are certain subgroups that seem mired in poverty, but that's another matter. The extent to which the rich have been getting richer and the poor getting poorer for the last 30 years in America has everything to do with the explosive growth of government and regulation, NOT capitalism.
Capital gains should be zero. All wealth creation is driven by savings and capital. Maximized capital investment and the incentives to save, maximize growth.
Income taxes should also be zero, by the way. It is entirely feasible to fund a properly scoped government with excise, duties, and user fees.
Even if GE does poorly, Buffet will still get his dividend. Also bear in mind, dividends paid by most corporations are taxable as long-term capital gains as opposed to income tax.
All in all, a solid bet by Buffet. Perhaps it's time to investigate Berkshire Hathaway stock.
" Perhaps it's time to investigate Berkshire Hathaway stock."
We had a stock picking game when I was in elementary school. I won by picking BerkHa because its price was higher and it moved a lot more. I only had 2 shares but I outperformed everyone who had hundreds or thousands of shares of other stock. I thought it was fun and told my mom we should buy some BerkHa but she said the stock market was gambling.
There's an excellent lesson to be learned here. The level of passion and technical competency the detailer displays in his quest to clean the car is what's also needed for a startup to succeed.
1) Make the search box on main page bigger and move it up a little bit.
2) I want larger navigation page numbers and icons. Center it once again. Maybe put page numbers on top as well.
3) Make safe search on/off a toggle switch. I don't want to go to another page and then hit save etc.
4) black/blue motif just hurts my eyes.
5) Ditto with the font
It's amazing how ingrained searching Google is for me. When I want to advance the search page, I instinctively move my cursor to the bottom right of my screen. Whenever I search on Yahoo or Live the presentation of the results just seem visually painful.
If the answer is "Not very long" then you will have to crack open your wallet.