Foreword
Nearly 14 years ago, I worked as a system administrator at a small software company in the Bay Area. A large portion of my daily routine was spent performing maintenance on our servers (installing software updates, performing backups to tape, restoring lost data from backups, etc.). One day, I was assigned the seemingly mundane task of finding a new CRM application to replace our outdated, custom-built one. I had no idea at the time that this task would alter my perception of the world and change my life forever.
After much research, I narrowed down the contenders to a short list, at the top of which was Salesforce. The product met the majority of our requirements, provided additional features we had not even considered, and eliminated ...