By: Nick Gambino
Salesforce is getting into the world of streaming with their new service Salesforce+ geared toward businesses. So no, you won’t see any murder mystery shows or the next Stranger Things, but you will get such riveting programming as Leading Through Change, The Inflection Point and Boss Talks.
All of the shows that will appear on Salesforce+ were created in-house by their newly formed Salesforce Studios. They’ve been hiring scriptwriters and producers to pump out content to fill the new streaming service. But the plan extends beyond mere in-house shows.
“We see an incredible opportunity to have community-submitted content and series,” Sarah Franklin, Chief Marketing Officer for Salesforce told Axios. “We can provide some production quality and oversight approvals.”
Allowing for community submissions definitely sets Salesforce+ apart from other streamers. Can you imagine Netflix or Hulu adopting a policy where they allow the general public to submit visual content? Yes, YouTube allows you to do that, but they were built on that model before they ever created a premium streaming service. Amazon Prime does have a submission portal but that’s a colossal hurdle to overcome.
What’s really surprising is they don’t intend to charge for the service or to even place ads. “We’ll measure success by free subscribers and viewership,” Franklin says. This is pretty impressive considering the fact that they plan to provide on-demand programming 24/7 as well as stream out live events.
If it’s going to be reliable and robust enough to handle a huge traffic load, that’s going to cost money. Though don’t get it twisted, Salesforce is a multi-billion-dollar enterprise, so I think they can handle it.
If they can purchase Slack for $28 billion (just last December), they can stand to front some money for a competently run streaming platform. Sure, they stacked up some debt for that little deal to go through, but still, they have the resources. Guess it helps when you’re the number-one SaaS provider in the world.
It seems like everyone is destined to eventually create their own streaming platform. I swear we’re two seconds away from seeing McDonald’s+ featuring kids shows like Hamburglar’s House of Rock and Adventures in McDonaldland.
