SalesForce Cloud Computing: Force.com

SalesForce [SaaS] and Force [PaaS]

With Force.com platform as a service; you don’t need to be an expert developer to quickly produce critical business applications.
— Nimbus Partners

Salesforce is a clear 800-pound gorilla in the Software as a Service (SaaS) space and has one of the top offerings, Force, in the Platform as a Service (PaaS) space, especially for companies with additional needs for sales-related applications.

Force is a fast platform for building business apps by allowing clients to assemble applications with clicks, components and code then instantly deploy them to Salesforce.com’s global infrastructure.

Force claims customers and partners have built over 100,000 custom applications spanning every industry and every business function from billing and ERP applications to human resources and recruiting.

If you use Salesforce, building or subscribing to complementary SaaS applications with Force is worth considering. As of Q4 2009, Salesforce reports more than 135,000 applications have been built on Force.com platform and more than 200,000 developers have joined its developers' program.

Salesforce provides several SaaS offerings: Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, and Chatter. Sales Cloud is for running a large salesforce and competes with Oracle's Siebel and SugarCRM. Sales Cloud is for running a customer contact center and competes with RightNow. Chatter is a social media/Facebook-like collaboration tool which "deconstructs the organization into what people do," by expanding cross-enterprise collaboration on customer initiatives. As of March 2010, about 100 enterprises have adopted Chatter for $25/person/month.

Salesforce annual revenues exceed $1 billion. Their balance sheet is very strong. They do not separate out Force.com revenue.

In 2008, Salesforce.com became one of the first vendors of hosted applications to become certified under ISO 27001 standards. They have also achieved TrustE and SAS 70, Type II compliance.

If you are thinking of migrating from Siebel Sales to SalesForce, we believe you can save $1 million. See our migration services page for details.