(Editor's note: Welsh has consulted with organizations competitive with Schwab and Salesforce.) A TROJAN HORSE? Due to the ginormous costs of deploying, customizing and supporting Salesforce for an advisor's business, Schwab attempted to create an integrated bundle, the Schwab OneView Integrated Office, that would attract advisors to their platform in order to better control those advisors' access to the investment products and services Schwab sells to subsidize their custody services. After six years, I believe Schwab gave up on this strategy not only to stem the financial bleeding from offering a subsidized bundled offering -- only 150 firms are subscribed -- but also to focus on ways they can better control the ways advisors operate their businesses directly through their own software, and not a third party and potential new competitor.