Last week, a mixed bag of news swirled around Salesforce, from the launch of a new Slack interface to customer data software concerns.
Let’s dig down a little to find out what has made this such a polarized week for the global CRM provider.
The Good
Last Wednesday, Slack released a new user interface to improve productivity for users.
The design update will reportedly go live on Slack over the coming months. It aims to simplify navigation, make it easier to focus, and add tools for modern work.
In Salesforce’s related blog post, it explains: "Companies that can centralize their people and tools they use every day in one place will get work done more efficiently, and increase productivity.
With Slack, businesses have a command center for modern work that seamlessly integrates their apps into one place, automating admin and time-consuming processes, and bringing teams into one platform to collaborate.
Slack is creating a default home view through which users will be able to navigate to channels, direct messages, and apps.
It is also adding a dedicated view designed to limit interruptions and allow for uninterrupted work.
This includes an Activity center to catch up on important work, Direct Messages to read in their own time, and an option to set reminders for messages and action items.
The Bad
A former Salesforce vice president, Karl Wirth, is now suing his former employer and blowing the lid on Salesforce’s claims it made during the release of Genie in September last year.
In a keynote presentation about its new CDP software, the company described it as capable of processing information in real-time.
This was "all a lie", Wirth tells, because “many of its processes took several hours”.
According to Wirth, Salesforce had not managed to create a technology to live up to the scheduled release date and chose to knowingly mislead the public rather than adapt its announcement to truthfully reflect the software.
Wirth said he was fired within hours after raising his concerns to Salesforce’s CTO, Parker Harris.
