Audio/Video: Prospective customers discuss interest in salesforce.com, ponder Apex platform

Vendors have short lists of customers that they're always willing to furnish to the press if a reporter (and nowathesedays, bloggers) needs a quote or two. But I've never really given those offerings a chance. After all, can I expect Joe Vendor to put me in touch with a customer that's disappointed with his offerings? 

Earlier this year, via e-mail, I received an invitation to a local salesforce.com event in Boston. The invite encouraged to come find out what salesforce.com was all about and to learn about its new Apex platform. Clearly, the e-mail wasn't targeting the press. It was trying to ferret out new customers and somehow I ended up on that  mailing list. So, with just a bit of fair warning to salesforce's PR counsel, I crashed the event in hopes of getting some unvarnished video access to the company's prospective customers. The idea was to get them to share the reasons for their interest in salesforce.com so that ZDNet's audience members could see how their peers were thinking about the salesforce automation solution provider as well as the idea of going off-premises for their application infrastructure.

The format of the reception that I attended was informal. Gathered around the edges of the room were boothlets for some of salesforce.com's partners (particularly ones that are a part of the company's Apexchange program). In the middle was an open bar and walking around the room were people whose event badges were dangling on lanyards of various colors. If you were at the event and you were wearing a red lanyard, it meant that salesforce.com considered you to be a hot prospect: someone who probably didn't need too much prodding to become a salesforce customer. As often happens when I walk up to a stranger with a microphone in one hand and a camera with a blinking red light looking over my shoulder, most of the hot prospects ducked into the crowd or refused to comment while the tape was rolling (a lot of people are muzzled from saying anything about their employers to the press). But some, including two so-called "hot prospects" were willing to talk.

We captured their comments on audio as well as video so you can choose your poison. If you're subscribed to our podcast feed, the audio should automatically turn up in on your computer or portable audio player. You can also manually download the audio or stream it to your desktop using the Flash-based player above. Or, if you want the it in living color, click on the video box below: