Today’s topics include President Trump blocking Broadcom’s acquisition of Qualcomm and Salesforce releasing Salesforce Essentials CRM for small businesses.
As the latest demonstration of his administration’s increasingly protectionist business stance, U.S. President Donald Trump on March 12 blocked the contentious hostile takeover attempt by Broadcom of San Diego-based chipmaker Qualcomm.
In his presidential order, Trump said, “There is credible evidence” that the $117 billion acquisition of Qualcomm by Broadcom “might … threaten to impair the national security of the United States.” Even though Broadcom is a Singapore-based company, any connection with U.S. technology information seeping into China was the main concern impacting the president’s action.
According to The New York Times, the Trump administration believes allowing the acquisition of a U.S.-based technology company would cede the United States’ primacy in the semiconductor industry and give China a competitive advantage.
Salesforce has released Salesforce Essentials, a customer relationship management platform designed and priced expressly for small businesses. Essentials also incorporates the company’s Trailhead system of self-guided tutorials, limiting, if not eliminating, the need for separate instruction in how to use the cloud CRM service.
Essentials is designed for a maximum of 10 users at $25 per month each based on a standard software-as-a-service model. There is also a free one-month trial version.
Rebecca Wettemann, an analyst with Nucleus Research, said, “Essentials is priced at a fraction of what [Salesforce] would charge for enterprise versions, and it’s designed as a bridge that these small businesses can cross as they grow to other Salesforce solutions.”
Hinting at other “Essentials” apps to follow, Salesforce said the initial release includes two apps available now, Sales Cloud Essentials and Service Cloud Essentials.