New Incubator Idea May Fuel More Innovation
Salesforce.com’s Mark Benioff has come up with an idea that is being billed as “Incubator 2.0″ by BusinessWeek.com. As recently reported by BusinessWeek, Benioff last month launched a business incubator within his own company.
The purpose is to bring in startups under one roof and let them at the task of helping build new software solutions for Salesforce.com. The companies invited in get no financing from Benioff and they pay rent (about $20K annually), but they get some traditional incubator services, including watercooler networking with fellow innovators and no worries on office space.
All of this seems fairly unique in the annals of corporate support for R&D of new products and applications. To be sure, there are many who don’t believe business incubation is all its cut out to be, but Benioff’s move certainly is worth tracking in the months ahead.