Chicago (IL) – Salesforce.com, the world's largest maker of CRM solutions, joined the growing cloud computing party and announcing plans to launch its software platform into the cloud. The platform Force.com will integrate with Facebook and Google application environments and add support for Amazon Web Services application hosting.
Simply put, cloud computing, also referred to as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), describes computing resources, such as storage and processing power that are delivered to users over the Internet on demand. The current cloud-everything trend seems to be approaching tipping point as a series of related announcements have hit the wires over the past week. The most recent company to join a trend is Salesforce.com, a maker of on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
Salesforce.com has built a $3.7 billion business on top of a web-based software that manages complex customer relations tasks. Although the front-end of these applications runs inside a web browser, the databases and algorithms that analyze information and provide conclusions resides on Salesforce.com servers. In that view, the company has actually been delivering web applications and computing power over the Internet for several years, long before the phrase "cloud computing" became ubiquitous
So it shouldn't be a surprise anyone that co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff proclaimed Salesforce.com a cloud computing company during the Dreamforce event keynote at the Moscone Center in San Francisco yesterday.
Salesforce tools available to developers include a payment and billing system, programming environment and subscriber relationships. Benioff described the environment a "cloud specialization" because all these capabilities are now available to developers as hosted online service. Additionally, the platform is now integrated with Google services, while Facebook integration is on the way. This will enable users of an application to authenticate themselves using their Facebook and Google account. Furthermore, it also allows applications to put a front-end inside Google and Facebook application environments.
The company also said it is working on unlocking Amazon Web Services, which complements an already comprehensive set of solutions for complex scenarios. Developers are now able to build applications on top of the Salesforce platform and host them on Amazon's cloud computers. Also, an application can even collect data and interface with end users in Facebook and Google environments.
Simply put, cloud computing, also referred to as Software-as-a-Service (SaaS), describes computing resources, such as storage and processing power that are delivered to users over the Internet on demand. The current cloud-everything trend seems to be approaching tipping point as a series of related announcements have hit the wires over the past week. The most recent company to join a trend is Salesforce.com, a maker of on-demand customer relationship management (CRM) solutions.
Salesforce.com has built a $3.7 billion business on top of a web-based software that manages complex customer relations tasks. Although the front-end of these applications runs inside a web browser, the databases and algorithms that analyze information and provide conclusions resides on Salesforce.com servers. In that view, the company has actually been delivering web applications and computing power over the Internet for several years, long before the phrase "cloud computing" became ubiquitous
So it shouldn't be a surprise anyone that co-founder and CEO Marc Benioff proclaimed Salesforce.com a cloud computing company during the Dreamforce event keynote at the Moscone Center in San Francisco yesterday.
Salesforce tools available to developers include a payment and billing system, programming environment and subscriber relationships. Benioff described the environment a "cloud specialization" because all these capabilities are now available to developers as hosted online service. Additionally, the platform is now integrated with Google services, while Facebook integration is on the way. This will enable users of an application to authenticate themselves using their Facebook and Google account. Furthermore, it also allows applications to put a front-end inside Google and Facebook application environments.
The company also said it is working on unlocking Amazon Web Services, which complements an already comprehensive set of solutions for complex scenarios. Developers are now able to build applications on top of the Salesforce platform and host them on Amazon's cloud computers. Also, an application can even collect data and interface with end users in Facebook and Google environments.