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"This is a really important point that, you know, CEOs have a lot of power and control on investment in states and we want to invest in states where there is equality," Benioff said. "One thing that you're seeing is that there is a third [political] party emerging in this country, which is the party of CEOs," he said

Former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina on Thursday blasted Apple CEO Tim Cook's opposition to Indiana's religious freedom law as "hypocrisy." (Photo on article not shown due to license held by Getty Images) Fiorina, a potential 2016 GOP presidential contender, said Cook had a double standard and cited Apple's operations in other countries with controversial laws about gays and women in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “When Tim Cook is upset about all the places that he does business because of the way they treat gays and women, he needs to withdraw from 90% of the markets that he’s...

Salesforce CEO: We're Helping Employees Move Out of Indiana Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said Wednesday that he is helping employees who are uncomfortable with Indiana's controversial religious freedom law to transfer out of the state. The move is in response to a law signed last week by Indiana Gov. Mike Pence that allows businesses to refuse service to gay, lesbian and transgender people on religious grounds. Benioff had already pledged to reduce his company's investments in Indiana, calling the law "brutal," "unfair" and "unjust." The cloud computing CEO said he is working with state officials in hopes of changing the...

Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff has been one of the most vocal opponents of Indiana's controversial Religious Freedom Restoration Act, a law that allows businesses to refuse to serve members of the LGBT community. Last week, he canceled all events scheduled in Indiana and withdrew its sponsorship of Indy Big Data in protest of the law. He's discouraging employees from traveling to Indiana and stopped investing in the state as a whole. Now he offered at least one Salesforce employee a $50,000 check to move out of the state.

SAN FRANCISCO (CBS SF) – Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff says he doesn’t want his employees subjected to discrimination as part of their work for the San Francisco-based company, and he is cancelling all required travel to the state of Indiana following the signing of a religious freedom law that some say allows business to exclude gay customers. On Thursday, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence signed into law a religious objections bill that some business leaders have opposed amid concern it could allow discrimination against homosexuals. Indiana is the first state to enact such a change this year among about a dozen...

A judge in Seattle today denied a former Microsoft general manager’s new attempt to carve out a role for himself at Salesforce.com, saying the revised job proposal would still run afoul of his non-compete agreement with the Redmond company, even if it didn’t precisely match his former Microsoft role. The preliminary injunction entered by King County Superior Court Judge Kimberley Prochnau includes a provision enjoining the former Microsoft GM, Matthew Miszewski, from “working in a marketing role in salesforce.com’s public or commercial sector anywhere in the world.” Despite the restrictions, Judge Prochnau said from the bench that she still could...

In recent quarters Oracle has been taking aim at Salesforce.com, noting that its Siebel On Demand was poaching customers. On Thursday it was Salesforce’s turn to return fire. Following Salesforce’s fiscal second quarter earnings, CEO Marc Benioff, as chatty as ever, took aim at his trash talking nemesis, Oracle chief Larry Ellison. Benioff said on a conference call: I am excited to welcome back Success Factors to the Salesforce.com family. Success Factors dropped Oracle On Demand after the application failed to deliver and sales reps pleaded to return to Salesforce. When sales teams are demanding your application to support their...

Salesforce.com repackages Apex code as developer 'platform'Software as a Service (SaaS) isn't dead, but it could soon be overtaken by Platform as a Service (PaaS), according to SaaS pioneer Salesforce.com. With this week's launch of its re-packaged Apex Code platform under the oddly-named Summer '07, Salesforce.com claims this is the next step in the expansion of service-based computing. "The first generation of SaaS was about providing applications such as customer relationship management (CRM) and email packaged as services. With Summer '07 we are taking this to the next level and delivering a platform with tools and services for the developer,"...