Introducing Database.com, the World's First Enterprise Database Built for the Cloud

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 7, 2010 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today launched Database.com (http://www.database.com/), the world's first enterprise database built for the cloud. Database.com is built from the ground up to power new enterprise applications that are cloud, mobile and social. Database.com is open for use with any language, platform and device. It enables developers to focus on building great applications instead of tuning, maintaining and scaling databases. Database.com leverages the proven infrastructure and technology trusted by more than 87,000 salesforce.com customers over 11 years – now designed and made available as a standalone cloud database.

(Logo:  http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO)

"We see cloud databases as a massive market opportunity that will power the shift to enterprise applications that are natively cloud, mobile and social," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "For the first time, we are making Database.com, the database that is proven and trusted by our 87,000 customers, available as an open, stand-alone service to accelerate the creation of these new apps."

Database.com: Open, Proven, Secure and Built for the Cloud

The industry shift to mobile apps, to a social data model, and to an event-driven, push model all require a new kind of cloud database to support the next generation of enterprise apps. Database.com will free developers to spend their time building valuable applications instead of managing and maintaining database management systems and hardware. For CIOs, IT departments and developers, Database.com provides many benefits over client/server databases:

• Database.com is open. Developers can write their applications in Java, C#, Ruby, PHP and other languages. Developers can run their apps on any platform - Force.com, VMforce, Amazon EC2, Google AppEngine, Heroku or Microsoft Azure.  And their apps can run natively on any device, like an Android phone, Blackberry, iPad, or iPhone.  These apps can all call the Database.com APIs securely over the Internet. These can be small apps needed by only a few users, or massive apps capable of scaling to support hundreds of thousands of users. For example:
  • iPhone and iPad app developers can write native iOS apps. These apps run natively on Apple devices and connect to Database.com over the Internet.
  • Android developers can write native Android apps using Java. These apps run natively on Android devices and connect to Database.com.
  • Web developers can build apps on Amazon EC2 using PHP and connect to Database.com.
  • Java developers can write an application that runs on VMforce and connects to Database.com.
• Database.com is proven and secure. More than 87,000 customers have been using it for more than 11 years to store their most sensitive data. Database.com benefits from the security of salesforce.com's global service delivery infrastructure, offering SSL, single-sign on, identity confirmation and anti-phishing tools. It also provides secure access, including user and role-based security and sharing rules and row-level data security. Database.com has also received some of the most stringent security certifications in the industry, including ISO 27001, SAS 70 Type II and SysTrust. Database.com powers salesforce.com's service, and is one of the world's largest enterprise databases, containing more than 20 billion records and delivering more than 25 billion transactions per fiscal quarter at an average response time of less than 300 milliseconds.

Database.com: Enterprise Database Built for the Cloud

Database.com combines the best features of enterprise databases, such as user management, row-level security, triggers, stored procedures, authentication and powerful APIs, with the benefits of cloud computing: no hardware or software to manage, automatic scalability, upgrades, backups, and disaster recovery. It also includes a new social data model, new developer console and more:

• Relational data store: Proven, secure and trusted database, including tables, relationships, support for a wide variety of field types, triggers and stored procedures, a query language and enterprise search;
• File storage: for documents, video, images and more;
• SOAP and REST APIs: Database.com includes standard web services APIs, making it easy for developers to access their database.com data;
• Social data model: New kinds of apps require new data models. Database.com includes a pre-built social data model for feeds, user profiles, status updates, and a following model for all database records. Database.com includes social APIs that developers can use to easily interact with the social components of their data models. For example, they can specify followers for database records or request data feeds to display real-time data updates;
• Automatic elasticity: Database.com is built for Internet scale with automatic tuning, upgrades, backups and replication to remote data centers, and automatic creation of sandboxes for development, test and training;
• Identity and Authentication: Access can be managed via oAuth or SAML. Database.com provides user management features including identity/profiles and authentication;
• Row-level security: Point-and-click tools allow developers to define data security access rules down to the row-level. These rules drive filtering logic that for all database queries from custom apps built on top of Database.com;
• Enterprise search: Database.com includes powerful enterprise search services. Developers can access a full-text search engine that automatically respects enterprise security rules;
• Tools: Database.com includes a new developer console and ETL tools. Salesforce.com has made a series of developer toolkits available separately to accelerate app development. Available at www.database.com, Database.com developer toolkits include:
  • Java, .NET, Ruby and PHP
  • iOS and Android
  • Google AppEngine, Google Data, Microsoft Azure, Amazon Web Services, Facebook, and Twitter
  • Adobe Flash/Flex

Comments on the News:

• "There is a shift going on in the $21.2B database systems marketplace,"(1) said Donald Feinberg, vice president and distinguished analyst, Gartner. "We're seeing a rise in popularity of cloud enabled database management systems (DBMSs) that remove the complexity of software and hardware, and deliver automatic scalability, tuning and back-up. To truly see adoption in the enterprise, however, cloud enabled DBMSs need to support both the speed, ease and elasticity of the cloud as well as the relational, security and transactional features required by enterprises."
• "The platform shift to cloud, mobile and social applications will continue to accelerate," said Sohaib Abbasi, chairman and chief executive officer, Informatica. "These modern applications require the next generation of cloud databases and cloud data integration. To facilitate this shift, Informatica is announcing the expansion of Informatica Cloud to integrate data from both traditional on-premise databases and the new, innovative cloud-based Database.com service."  

Pricing and Availability:

Database.com is currently scheduled to be generally available as a standalone service in 2011.

Database.com will be free to get started. Basic Database.com services, including database access, file storage and automatic administration, will be available beginning at:

• Free for 3 users, and up to 100,000 records and 50,000 transactions/month;
• $10/month for each set of 100,000 records beyond that;
• $10/month for each set of 150,000 transactions beyond that;

Database.com Enterprise Services will be priced at $10/user/month and include user identity, authentication and row-level security access controls. Prices and scheduling of general availability are subject to change. Customers should make purchasing decisions based on features that are currently available.

1. Gartner, Inc., Market Share: Database Management System Software, Worldwide, 2009, Colleen Graham et al, April 28, 2010.

Additional Resources:

• Follow @databasedotcom on Twitter
• A video detailing the features of Database.com is available at www.database.com

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the trusted enterprise cloud computing company. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, the company's Force.com platform and apps (http://www.salesforce.com/crm) have revolutionized the way companies collaborate and communicate. Salesforce.com's cloud offerings include:

• The Sales Cloud, for sales force automation and contact management
• The Service Cloud, for customer service and support
• The Jigsaw Data Cloud, for ensuring data integrity and quality
• Salesforce Chatter, for social collaboration
• The Force.com platform, for custom application development
• Database.com, the world's first enterprise cloud database
• The AppExchange, the world's leading marketplace for enterprise cloud computing apps

Salesforce.com offers the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing. As of October 31, 2010, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 87,200 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements may not be 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, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

Copyright (c) 2010 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE salesforce.com