Salesforce.com Intros Force.com Sites to Expand Enterprise Cloud Computing

Companies that sought to provide consistent updates on their websites and for their Intranets often had to rely on software and hardware implementations, as well as their IT department in order to update information. Now, these updates can be done on the fly relying only on the Force.com platform.

 

Salesforce.com has announced the availability of Force.com Sites, a new capability of the Force.com platform that is designed to allow customers to run their Web sites in salesforce.com’s cloud. Force.com Sites provide customers with the power to publish Force.com data and applications to any website.

 

This new capability allows salesforce.com customers to extend their reach to new users on intranets, external websites and online communities. Force.com Sites will run entirely in the cloud without the cost and complexity of traditional software.

“With Force.com Sites, customers have the ability to run their websites in our cloud,” said Marc Beioff, chairman and CRO, salesforce.com, in a Monday statement.

“Force.com Sites will enable a dramatic expansion of Force.com’s role in cloud computing for the enterprise. We expect our community to unleash entirely new kinds of applications and innovations that will truly drive our vision of ‘The End of Software.’”

"Running our business on Force.com has been night and day compared with our previous client/server infrastructure," said Michael Wolverton, CEO, Cathedral Partners, in Monday’s statement. Cathedral Partners is a marketplace that connects buyers and sellers of privately held companies.

"Our business revolves around our interactive Web application, a marketplace to connect buyers and sellers. With Force.com Sites we were able to get our marketplace up and running in a matter of weeks instead of the months it had taken with our previous architecture," Wolverton added.

 

"Force.com Sites changes the entire paradigm for building applications," said Narinder Singh, Founder and Head of Technology and Marketing, Appirio, in the Monday statement.

 

“Companies no longer have to consider separate architectures and approaches depending on where the users are. Running Web sites on salesforce.com’s cloud removes cost and complexity and allows companies to extend existing applications beyond their own four walls."

 

With Force.com Sites, control for building and running business applications is put back into the hands of users. The comprehensive platform provides the necessary tools and building blocks to quickly build and run business applications including database, workflow, logic, integration, customization and user interface capabilities.

This platform also enables data and applications to be easily extended to mobile devices – such as the iPhone (News - Alert) - without requiring customers to manage and maintain additional client/server infrastructure. The capabilities are extended to allow companies to share business data and applications to external users and websites.

To get up and running, Force.com sites require only a few steps, including building the application on Force.com; using Visualforce to build the Web site’s external, public facing pages; registering a Force.com domain name; and publishing and running the site on salesforce.com’s global infrastructure. 

Force.com sites allow salesforce.com customers to take more than 85,000 custom applications built on the Force.com platform and extend them to their external communities and users. This new platform allows customers to build and run new Web applications; transform business applications into websites; and extend the Salesforce CRM applications through interactive Web-to-lead forms.

Such capabilities are designed to not only eliminate the need for software, hardware, servers and system administration, they also allow for complete collaboration between different departments and individuals within the organization. This eliminates the need for multiple e-mails back and forth between parties to provide necessary information on the Web page.

Salesforce.com (News - Alert) is meeting an essential need within the global business community, recognizing that companies needed a way to share information – internally and externally – without the cost and complexity normally associated with software and hardware-based processes.

In meeting this need, the Force.com Sites will be able to drive additional traffic to salesforce.com and the Force.com platform, increasing market share and establishing firm leadership in enterprise Cloud Computing.