Salesforce is acting like Dick's

Insignificant bill said:

I believe new law needs to be looked at.

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I disagree. That’s the line of thinking that the antis use: “I don’t like X, so there should be a law against it.” When companies take political or social stances we don’t like, then we should stop giving our money to those companies. That’s the beauty of capitalism.

Theohazard said:

I disagree. That’s the line of thinking that the antis use: “I don’t like X, so there should be a law against it.” When companies take political or social stances we don’t like, then we should stop giving our money to those companies. That’s the beauty of capitalism.

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I understand where you are coming from and believe in capitalism. This situation involves a Constitutional Right, where a company was fine with gun sellers using their software has them locked in and then tries black mailing them because they have decided they don't like the legal product they are selling. As has been stated these gun sellers can't just jump to a different sales software without it costing them alot of money and maybe putting them out of business.

Insignificant bill said:

This situation involves a Constitutional Right

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Sure, but constitutional rights apply to governments, not to private entities. Just how THR can control our speech on their forum, Salesforce can prevent its customers from using their software to sell guns.

Insignificant bill said:

As has been stated these gun sellers can't just jump to a different sales software without it costing them alot of money and maybe putting them out of business.

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That’s certainly true, that kind of retail software is usually very expensive. My guess is there’s probably grounds for a lawsuit if a company paid tens of thousands of dollars for their software and now can’t use it to run their business because of Salesforce’s political stance.

can anyone explain why this would end up being any different than baking a cake for a gay wedding or transgender reveal? BTW, that guy is suing the heck out of his tormentors for a second issue very much like the first. I hope he wins bigly. It may cost him everything.

If the court ruled/rules in favor of that guy, and we are all supposed to be relieved about that, then why are we supposed to be upset (or even surprised) by this salesforce thing?

Yes, it would be expensive and painful to break out of a lock-in situation. Sure. My company did it, and we have 40,000 employees with offices on continents wherever there are people. My analogue cost $100M to buy and install and we aren’t done with integration or training yet. So I don’t need a primer on the issues surrounding that.

But if rights trump commercial transactions, and we feel that strongly about it then we should put our money where our mouth it and tell salesforce to stick it.

Other than Camping World (Gander) and the US Custome, Boarder Patrol. what firearm companies use SalesForce??

You can be sure they did careful analysis and determined who they'd have to cut off...versus what they perceive to be the positive PR benefits, or to make them feel good about themselves. They are sort of the 800-pound-gorilla in the CRM space for the largest companies. Amongst other things, I provide IT support for SF.COM at my company (one of the largest in the world).

Kudos to the OP for the title of the thread.

jmace57 said:

You can be sure they did careful analysis and determined who they'd have to cut off...versus what they perceive to be the positive PR benefits, or to make them feel good about themselves. They are sort of the 800-pound-gorilla in the CRM space for the largest companies. Amongst other things, I provide IT support for SF.COM at my company (one of the largest in the world).

Kudos to the OP for the title of the thread.

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It's a great title, except for the apostrophe.

You WILL! bake a wedding cake for that couple!

Sovblocgunfan said:

can anyone explain why this would end up being any different than baking a cake for a gay wedding or transgender reveal?

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The BoR outlines what the government is prohibited from doing to people (and remember, corporations are people). Discrimination more broadly deal with what government *and businesses* may or may not do to people.

psyopspec said:

The BoR outlines what the government is prohibited from doing to people (and remember, corporations are people). Discrimination more broadly deal with what government *and businesses* may or may not do to people.

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Yeah, and? In the cake case government got involved when the potential customers complained that someone wouldn’t do what they wanted. That concluded with government telling government that government was wrong to try to force someone to do something they didnt want to. So the gay couple didnt get their cake.

What’s going to happen here, when 2A friendly companies complain to government that sales force wont do something 2a friendly companies want them to do?

Cant have it both ways.

Sovblocgunfan said:

Yeah, and? In the cake case government got involved when the potential customers complained that someone wouldn’t do what they wanted. That concluded with government telling government that government was wrong to try to force someone to do something they didnt want to. So the gay couple didnt get their cake.

What’s going to happen here, when 2A friendly companies complain to government that sales force wont do something 2a friendly companies want them to do?

Cant have it both ways.

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What’s going to happen here, when 2A friendly companies complain to government that sales force wont do something 2a friendly companies want them to do?

Probably nothing; as above, 2A does not address and is not intended to address the relationships that corporations have with their b2b clients. Beyond that point I don't feel educated on the nuances of those issues to render the sort of opinion you're probably looking to agree with or debate.

Sovblocgunfan said:

can anyone explain why this would end up being any different than baking a cake for a gay wedding or transgender reveal?

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In the case of baking a cake for a gay wedding, the would-be customer does not have prior any investment of time, money, employee training etc in the baker's product. A software product that runs an important part of your business and interacts with all your other company software, suddenly dropping a fiat on you that you can't use their product to manage a part of your business that they were perfectly happy managing until now, is a completely different story, either way the customer's business is destroyed.

I think one of their customers (or better yet a class action of ALL their firearm-selling customers) should sue them for changing the rules in the middle of the game -- salesforce should be bound by the terms of the original contract. And if the original contract has a provision stating that salesforce can cut off service at will if they decide they don't like a legal product or service the customer sells, the customers were idiots for agreeing.

All that said, as a former systems analyst specializing in all things database, their product is poorly designed, when everybody jumped on the whole CRM thing salesforce managed to be the sexy choice, but the design at least at the time was really amateurish from a technical POV. I could build something to accomplish the desired result for probably $100K, keeping the data safely in house.

I dont think preservation of the bill of rights has anything to do with “prior investment”. Furthermore the ruleset salesforce would want to enforce would almost certainly also be applied to new customers who may be looking at them for their services. But okay. If existing business is the major beef here then the story has less to do w 2a and more about contract law and the four corners of the user agreement and licensing requirements. You could plug in any issue you want: abortion, lottery winnings, red v blue company trucks, global warming, intelligent design, or whatever. The point is one party is trying to change the contract without equitable adjustment to the other party. That’s a different kettle of fish.

Sovblocgunfan said:

I dont think preservation of the bill of rights has anything to do with “prior investment”. Furthermore the ruleset salesforce would want to enforce would almost certainly also be applied to new customers who may be looking at them for their services. But okay. If existing business is the major beef here then the story has less to do w 2a and more about contract law and the four corners of the user agreement and licensing requirements. You could plug in any issue you want: abortion, lottery winnings, red v blue company trucks, global warming, intelligent design, or whatever. The point is one party is trying to change the contract without equitable adjustment to the other party. That’s a different kettle of fish.

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Exactly. We're mad because we're 2A advocates, but the actual issue here is one party to a contract arbitrarily changing its behavior vis-à-vis the other party, and in such a way as to severely injure the other party -- if the companies comply, they lose a big chunk of their existing sales, if they don't comply they can't run their business at all without spending a minimum of a year and $$$$$$$$$$ to change all their systems.

P5 Guy said:

You WILL! bake a wedding cake for that couple!

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No you will not have to. They ruled against the couple. Firearm companies are not a protected class.

I will ask again.

How many firearm companies use Sales Force?? I don't know?

I let my emotions get in the way of common sense when I spouted off about new law. Company's should definetly investigate the possibility of an injunction though.

Sovblocgunfan said:

can anyone explain why this would end up being any different than baking a cake for a gay wedding or transgender reveal? BTW, that guy is suing the heck out of his tormentors for a second issue very much like the first. I hope he wins bigly. It may cost him everything.

If the court ruled/rules in favor of that guy, and we are all supposed to be relieved about that, then why are we supposed to be upset (or even surprised) by this salesforce thing?

Yes, it would be expensive and painful to break out of a lock-in situation. Sure. My company did it, and we have 40,000 employees with offices on continents wherever there are people. My analogue cost $100M to buy and install and we aren’t done with integration or training yet. So I don’t need a primer on the issues surrounding that.

But if rights trump commercial transactions, and we feel that strongly about it then we should put our money where our mouth it and tell salesforce to stick it.

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There's a significant difference between what the cake bakers and Salesforce are doing. The cake bakers refused to bake the cake on religious grounds, something that should be respected, just as I wouldn't ask Muslim or Jewish restaurants to serve me food that violates their faith. I'd just go elsewhere. The people looking for the cake had the opportunity to go elsewhere and no financial investment with that cake baker at the time they were refused service. As has been mentioned setting up a CRM or other system with Salesforce is expensive, time consuming and making a change is a financial hardship for companies. If Salesforce announced that they would keep serving their current customers who sell AR-15's but would no longer accept new customers who do so, I'd be fine with that. Forcing current customers to stop selling a legal product after they invested a great deal of time and money and now need to make an expensive and time consuming change after they accepted their money is corporate gun control and I hope these companies sue.

Old Lady New Shooter, I typed this before seeing your response which is pretty much the same as mine.

Why can’t companies just do what they were founded to do. Let politicians play politics, let singers sing, actors act, and businesses make and sell stuff. Taking highly controversial political stances are not required. Just sell your product and worry about that. What’s next, are hospitals going to refuse to treat patients who are pro gun?

I’d really like to know exactly what went on behind the scenes before they announced this decision.

The question is, who is next on their blacklist?
What kills, maims and pollutes more, automobiles or semi-auto rifles?
What causes more health problems and heart attacks, fatty and sugary foods or guns?