Users Frustrated by Salesforce.com's Problems

Customers of Salesforce, a CRM company, experienced a service loss over the last few days which continues today. Salespeople in at least 10 areas who can't access their information when trying to follow up on customer contacts are asking “Where are my 4x5 cards when I need them?”

Users have been frustrated by a fault in the company's storage tier in June, while this month's problems are blamed on a power supply at a data center. Access has been restored for all areas as of this morning, except for the Instance NA1 which still qualifies for a Performance Issues icon.

The trust.salesforce.com site posted an announcement at 12:03 am PDT saying the technology team initiated a workaround and would work with individual customers to ensure that the workaround fully resolves any issues. They promised an update once the all clear is given.

Sakis Meliopoulos, professor at the school of electrical and computer engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology voiced the obvious: there is a growing need for reliable power sources, including backup plans and crisis management. This is true in any computer environment.

As Mother Nature stirs up hurricanes and tornadoes to disrupt power delivery and heat waves and cold snaps to place heavy demands on power, IT services will continually be challenged to overcome power outages.