ServiceNow CEO wants to 'drive a truck through' competition and aims for war with Salesforce

Frank Slootman eyes Salesforce and dismisses threat from other rivals: 'We're feeding on BMC's carcass'

ServiceNow president and CEO Frank Slootman is preparing for a battle with rival IT services provider Salesforce and has dismissed the threat of other competitors, including BMC and HP.

Slootman made the comments during a Q&A session with press and analysts at ServiceNow's 'Now Forum' conference in London. During his earlier keynote, Slootman talked about how ServiceNow is now the second largest software-as-a-service (SaaS) provider behind Salesforce and how he's "looking forward to chasing them down".

"Chasing down is probably a good characterisation because I think for the best part we're not overlapping, they're focused on sales and marketing cloud," Slootman said.

"If you listen to Marc Benioff [CEO of SalesForce] he does everything, there's nothing that he doesn't do. But then the reality of the matter is marketing is his priority after sales - all of his revenue is sales, which makes sense because marketing is adjacent to sales. Where we collide is on platform applications."

Slootman suggested that ServiceNow is in a healthy position, as the company is attracting customers that had considered adopting solutions offered by Salesforce.

"For example, Genie Energy," he said. "They build turbines for power plants, windmills and things - they used ServiceNow for all their field reporting. That was contested by SalesForce."

The ServiceNow CEO likened the growing competition between his firm and Salesforce to the 1930s, ahead of the outbreak of World War II.

"I always like to say its 1938 because in 1939 all hell broke loose, so a confrontation is brewing and growing between the companies," said Slootman.

"We know we're a significant irritant to them when it comes to these platform initiatives, it's not sales, marketing and helpdesk, God forbid, that's not where the heat is, the heat is the platform.

"And SalesForce is a $3bn company, so it's a good target," he added.

Slootman later turned his attention to other rivals in the SaaS arena, most notably BMC.

"BMC's Remedy business is literally melting down to the absolute core, seriously. We have grown 28 quarters in a row and we've been feeding on the BMC carcass. We've had literally more than 100 per cent growth for eight years in a row and a quarter of it is coming from BMC," he said.

During his earlier keynote, Slootman showcased a number of ServiceNow customers including Coca-Cola, General Electric, and the US Army, and with such high profile customers, he's certainly confident about his organisation's prospects.

"We are the biggest entity in this space by far today, I don't know if you realise that, not just in SaaS but across the board. BMC's business has shrivelled up, HP's business has almost disappeared," he told the group of analysts and press.

"I fear for their future, because we're going to drive a truck right through it, I mean they're dealing with products that are still Soviet Era software, nobody wants that," he added.