Ex-Salesforce.com President Turns up at Xactly
Steve Cakebread, who recently left his job as president of on-demand CRM vendor Salesforce.com, has been appointed chief financial and administrative officer of Xactly, maker of software for managing sales representatives' compensation.
The privately held Xactly is a much smaller company than Salesforce, which has annual revenues in excess of US$1 billion.
But Cakebread's background sends clear signals about what Xactly -- which just made its first acquisition, scooping up main rival Centive -- is hoping to accomplish, said 451 Group analyst China Martens.
"In a nice market, you would think this is a company headed to an IPO," Martens said. "So it's very interesting they'd hire a guy who took Salesforce public and took Salesforce through acquisitions of increasing size."
Large enterprises have had sales performance management systems for a long time, but Xactly and its competitors, which also include Callidus, are targeting companies that have done this type of thing "on the back of a napkin," Martens said.
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