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In this Cloud Wars Minute, I report from SAP Sapphire to discuss the shifting battle between SAP and Salesforce for supremacy in the enterprise applications business. The key now is not just who is number one in apps or AI but who is number one in data.
Highlights
00:51 — Last week, during Salesforce’s Q1 earnings call, Marc Benioff talked about positioning his company as a data company. On its previous earnings call and this one, he talked extensively about the power of data and its significance. Without data, you won’t be able to create the AI solutions that customers want and need. It’s all about the data to power AI, along with existing enterprise apps to create new capabilities.
01:30 — Benioff takes this to an extreme degree. He started referring to Salesforce’s sales and cloud services as platforms for the data. He said it’s going to weave all of those platforms into a data fabric that its data cloud can synthesize and harmonize. That’s the Salesforce approach.
Ask Cloud Wars AI Agent about this analysis
01:56 — At Sapphire this week, there will be much talk of what’s going on with the end-to-end applications powered by business AI and the Joule copilot. SAP believes that the power of the end-to-end data will provide customers with the best possible context for AI solutions.
02:18 — For a long time, Salesforce has talked about its customer 360 idea. Benioff said Salesforce has better front office data — referring to customer relationships — than anyone else. SAP is looking at a 360-degree view because it not only has front-office applications but also extends into HCM, ERP, and more.
02:57 — If the battle is about who has the better data, I think Salesforce is making its best pitch in this area. But overall, I believe that SAP will have the upper hand here with data because it covers all parts of what enterprises do and its end-to-end approach will prove to be most valuable for customers.
03:35 — There’s still much more ahead, looking forward to the rest of the Sapphire event and upcoming earnings calls from other providers.
