Experience with salesforce.com?

[blu at vl.com (Tom Metro)]

John Abreau wrote:
> My company is looking to standardize our calendar and contact tools 
> across our US and European offices, and someone proposed using a web 
> portal at salesforce.com.

Sounds like overkill if you don't also need the sales automation 
features that salesforce.com provides.


> It seems to only support something called IntelliSync, and then only
> a customized version that is limited to PalmOS and Outlook.

IntelliSync is a proprietary, Windows application that uses a 
proprietary XML protocol between it and the server (I implemented the 
server side for a web-based calendaring application several years ago).

I believe the non-customized, shrink-wrap versions of IntelliSync use 
the same XML protocol, and/or the drivers that come with the shrink-wrap 
version can be used with the custom version to support additional devices.

You will gain iCalendar support indirectly from Outlook or (I think) the 
Palm Desktop.


> ...I don't see any support for vCalendar or vCard imports or exports. 

That wouldn't surprise me, though salesforce.com does have a SOAP API, 
and a third party has probably developed a tool to import/export data in 
iCalendar/iCard format.


> I'm looking for something that will work with webcal urls, so it will 
> interoperate at least with Mozilla Sunbird and phpcalendar. 

You might want to look at SugarCRM[1] as an open source alternative to 
salesforce.com, but off hand I don't know if it supports iCalendar/iCard 
import/export.

The trend these days when it comes to shared calendaring information 
seems to be CalDAV[2].

1. http://www.sugarcrm.com/
2. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldav

  -Tom

-- 
Tom Metro
Venture Logic, Newton, MA, USA
"Enterprise solutions through open source."
Professional Profile: http://tmetro.venturelogic.com/