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Salesforce.com unveils Force.com Development-as-a-Service, world’s first developer tools for using Platform-as-a-Service – bringing the power of Cloud Computing to the enterprise

~ Force.com Development-as-a-Service includes new Force.com IDE, Force.com Metadata API, Force.com Code Share, and Force.com Sandbox ~

January 17, 2008

Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service and Platform-as-a-Service, has announced Force.com Development-as-a-Service, a new set of development tools and APIs that enable enterprise developers to easily harness the promise of cloud computing.

Providing full access to the database, logic and user interface capabilities of the Force.com Platform, Development-as-a-Service unites the productivity of development and IT collaboration tools with the power of Force.com Platform-as-a-Service. Force.com Development-as-a-Service includes the new Force.com Metadata API, the Force.com Integrated Development Environment (IDE), the Force.com Sandbox, and Force.com Code Share to provide developers with a comprehensive set of services to build enterprise Software-as-a-Service applications.

Executive quote

“Cloud computing is giving developers around the world access to unlimited computing power delivered completely as a utility service,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. “Just as Platform-as-a-Service provides enterprise IT with a new model for platforms to run applications in the cloud, Development-as-a-Service provides a new model for development tools, giving developers the power to create applications for the cloud.”

“The addition of Development-as-a-Service to the Force.com Platform will accelerate the transition of IT from last generation software to a new generation of services,” concluded Benioff.

Customer quote

“Force.com and Development-as-a-Service are enabling my IT organisation to do custom application development-as-a-service via the Internet, without having to install and maintain infrastructure,” said Douglas Menefee, CIO, The Schumacher Group. “Salesforce.com is helping us utilise cloud computing as a strategic advantage for our enterprise.”

About the company

Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services. The company’s Salesforce suite of on-demand CRM applications, available at http://www.salesforce.com/uk/products/, allows customers to manage and share all of their sales, support, marketing and partner information on-demand. Force.com, the world’s first on-demand platform, enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful new on- demand applications that extend beyond CRM to deliver the benefits of multi- tenancy and The Business Web across the enterprise. Force.com, available at http://www.force.com/uk/, allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com’s AppExchange marketplace, available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/. Customers can also take advantage of Successforce, salesforce.com’s world-class training, support, consulting and best practices offerings.

As of October 31, 2007, salesforce.com manages customer information for
approximately 38,100 customers including ABN AMRO, America Online (AOL), Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or
other press releases or public statements are not currently available and
may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase
salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon
features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in
San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York
Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM”. For more information please
visit http://www.salesforce.com/uk/

Contact details

For more information, please contact Sarah Crawford or Alex Yenni at LEWIS, the PR agency, at:
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7802 2626 Fax: +44 (0) 20 7802 2627

Email: sarahc@lewispr alexy@lewispr.com

Web: http://www.lewispr.com

Supporting materials

Force.com – The World’s First Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS)
The Force.com Platform-as-a-Service provides a comprehensive Cloud Computing Architecture to revolutionise application creation and delivery. Provided completely as a service via the Internet, the Force.com Platform provides the necessary building blocks to enable business application creation and delivery, without the need for software and hardware client-server infrastructure.

By replacing the cost and complexity of software platforms with a complete, scalable service, Force.com provides developers the fastest path to turn ideas into business impact. The Force.com PaaS encompasses a complete feature set for the creation of business applications, including the ability to create any database on demand, a workflow engine for managing collaboration between users, the Apex Code programming language for building complex logic, the Force.com Web Services API for programmatic access, mash-ups, and integration with other applications and data, and Visualforce for a framework to build any User-Interface-as-a-Service.

Development-as-a-Service: Powering Developer Productivity on Force.com
Development-as-a-Service will power developer productivity by providing a complete lifecycle for PaaS application development. With Force.com Development-as-a-Service, both corporate IT and ISVs gain APIs for development and change management, developer productivity tools, Force.com test environments, the ability to integrate with source code control and management systems, and more. Force.com Development-as-a-Service provides:

• Force.com Metadata API - Just like the existing Force.com API lets development teams access and integrate the data in their Force.com applications, the new Force.com Metadata API lets developers programmatically create and manage the code and metadata that those applications are built with. Providing access to the database schema, Apex code and Visualforce user interfaces that comprise a Force.com application, the Metadata API can be used to integrate with development tools and processes in a similar way the Force.com API can be used to integration with existing applications and systems.

• Force.com IDE – The Force.com IDE is the world’s first IDE for Platform-as-
a-Service. Built on Eclipse, the Force.com IDE provides a means to manage all standard development tasks, such as project views, HTML composition, rich code editing with error tracking, and more – providing developers with a powerful and familiar environment for creating Force.com applications.

• Force.com Sandbox – The Force.com Sandbox provides a separate on-
demand application environment for development, testing, and training. Cloning entire development projects - an exact replica that includes all customisations and data - is a simple, one-click process. The Force.com Sandbox provides a means for testing new customisations or features and for building and testing integrations and internally built applications.

• Force.com Code Share – With the new Force.com Code Share, developers across engineering organisations – or around the world – can collaborate on the development, testing and deployment of their PaaS applications. Integrating with most standards-based source control management systems, Code Share lets developers store the definitions of their Force.com applications in source control, and deploy those applications in either their Force.com Sandbox or production environments. And by connecting to Internet open source communities, including project hosting on Google Code http://code.google.com/hosting/, Code Share lets developers from anywhere in the world connect and collaborate in creating Force.com applications.

Availability
Force.com Metadata API, Force IDE and Force.com Code Share are now in developer preview and available for free at http://developer.force.com. Force.com Sandbox is included with Unlimited Edition and is available for a fee with other Editions. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.

Force.com Platform and the AppExchange
Force.com reinvents the traditional development, deployment and distribution of any business application with platform-as-a-service. Developers, customers and partners can use Force.com to easily create a new generation of on-demand applications and deploy them worldwide as a service. Force.com allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via Salesforce.com’s AppExchange marketplace, enabling all the innovation that Force.com unleashes to be easily distributed to the entire on-demand community.

The AppExchange economy continues to expand, with thousands of customers installing applications via the AppExchange. Customers of all sizes can quickly and easily extend Salesforce with additional on-demand business applications available on the AppExchange, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.


Technorati tags: salesforce.com | Force.com | SaaS | PaaS | cloud computing | development-as-a-service |

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