Marc Benioff Just Announced A Big Customer Win: Google

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Marc Benioff Disrupt

Julie Bort/Business Insider

Marc Benioff and Michael Arrington at Disrupt SF

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff just let slip some good news for a relatively new product line—Do.com, an online project-management tool.

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Google is rolling it out for its engineers, he told attendees at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference today.

Earlier this month, Salesforce.com rolled out a refresh of Do.com, built on technology from its 2011 acquisition of Manymoon.

Do.com is a free, Web-based application that competes directly with a closely watched startup, Asana, the latest project of Facebook cofounder Dustin Moskovitz.

Salesforce.com says that it has thousands of Do.com users already, including some well-known companies like homebuilder Shea Homes.

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But Google is a particularly big win—the kind of marquee customer Salesforce.com can use to persuade others to sign up.

Manymoon was originally built on top of Google Apps, improving its task-list features.

Benioff explained today that he thinks direct competition helps competitors, instead of hurting them, pushing each to innovate.

"I don't look at business as a zero-sum game," he said.

Interestingly, Benioff is an investor in Asana, though he didn't seem to realize this until today.

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While on stage, interviewer Michael Arrington asked him if he had invested in Asana. At first he said no. Then he said he wasn't sure because he invests in a fund run by early-stage investor Ron Conway.

Conway, in the audience, confirmed that he'd invested in Asana.

Don't miss: Inside Facebook Billionaire Dustin Moskovitz's Plan To Replace Email >