Salesforce.com: Mobile Not For Everybody

Salesforce.com introduced mobile versions of its software today in the hopes of upselling customers to more expensive versions of its offering. The so-called ‘mobile lite’ application supports Windows Mobile, BlackBerry and iPhone units and is free to some customers — but not all, despite the company’s claim that it’s bringing “enterprise cloud computing to the masses.”

Salesforce sells subscriptions to software as a service at four price points: Basic, Professional, Enterprise and Unlimited Edition. The new mobile offering, a slimmed-down version of the software, intended to help customers manage sales leads, is not available to customers of the Basic offering.

Craig Swensrund, a marketing executive with Salesforce, told me the company isn’t making the mobile application available to those customers because, “we consider mobile one of our full-service offerings.” He added that Basic customers who want the mobile application can upgrade their accounts to Professional. The stance is rich in irony considering that Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff makes it a point of pride to say that the software-as-a-service delivery model is a force for the “democratization” of technology.

Yankee Group analyst Sheryl Kingstone is even quoted in the company’s press release as saying “Ten years ago, accessing applications on your cell phone was considered advanced. Today, mobile access to enterprise applications is expected.” I suspect she doesn’t realize that Salesforce is telling Basic customers that they shouldn’t expect it.

Upselling is, of course, a tried and true strategy, particularly in a difficult economic period such as this. As I’ve reported earlier, SAP and Oracle use the same approach to squeeze more dollars out of their existing customers. But they’re doing it by offering customers new products, not offering a free version to some customers in the hopes of luring others to a higher price point.