LeWeb kicked off pretty strong on its first day, and the announcements are flying around – one of the more interesting announcements came out of the entreprise giant Salesforce, announcing that French pastis maker Pernod Ricard has now implemented Salesforce Chatter into their company. Salesforce Chatter (demo video available below) is a Enterprise Social Network – much like Yammer or Azendoo – which allows employees to communicate together internally.
In addition to demonstrating Salesforce’s ongoing dominance in the enterprise
“Pernod Ricard’s business model is based on the twin pillars of decentralisation, which gives all our subsidiary companies substantial entrepreneurial independence, and conviviality, which means sharing between everyone including the continuous exchange of ideas. Pernod Ricard Chatter was the tool we needed to turn these two aspects into an instant, daily reality for 18,800 colleagues.”
I caught up with the Director of Innovation at Saleforce, Charlie Richey, and asked about Salesforce’s operations in France. While he declined to mention how the growth was in the French market vs. other European markets, he alluded to great growth in Europe overall saying that they were seeing similar growth in Europe that they saw in US two years ago, and that they continued to see growth in France despite the present economic situation. Richey, described by one colleague as “Master Guru of all things Salesforce,” has been living in Paris for years, having previously worked for InStranet in Paris before it was acquired by Salesforce in 2008 for $32M.
Salesforce was showing off a few key clients in France at their stand at LeWeb, including ski equipment maker Rossignol & home contstruction & redesign company Mikit.