Salesforce Launches Government Cloud Lightning and Extends Compliance, Enabling Additional Government Agencies to Benefit from the Cloud

WASHINGTON, April 28, 2016 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce [NYSE: CRM], the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM company, today launched Government Cloud Lightning. With Government Cloud Lightning, government agencies and contractors have access to an intuitive user experience, a modern component-based platform and a vibrant partner ecosystem, enabling them to quickly build apps that connect government agencies with citizens, employees, partners and suppliers in new ways.

Government agencies have long struggled with legacy IT systems that are disconnected, inflexible and expensive to maintain. In fact, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) stated that agencies spent approximately $58 billion of their $79 billion IT budget in 2015 maintaining legacy systems¹, leaving little left over for new innovation. At the same time, citizen expectations are changing. As the use of digital technologies continues to disrupt traditional, paper-based processes, citizens are demanding more modern, personalized interactions with their elected officials and agencies. In fact, 72%² of people are dissatisfied with their government experiences, and 81%³ don't trust the government overall. To successfully connect with their constituents, government agencies need a modern and flexible technology platform that allows them to communicate with citizens wherever they are and create apps that run on every device -- all with the highest levels of security and trust.

Introducing Government Cloud Lightning
Government Cloud Lightning gives departments and agencies the platform they need to transform into modern, mobile and responsive organizations, enabling government employees to connect with citizens and stakeholders anywhere and on any device. Government Cloud Lightning is a part of Salesforce's multitenant public cloud infrastructure and is specifically built for use by U.S. federal, state and local government agencies, as well as government contractors and federally funded research and development centers.

Key benefits of Government Cloud Lightning include:

• The Lightning experience: Lightning provides a beautiful, modern, intelligent and personalized experience that is consistent across products and devices. This empowers government employees to streamline how they communicate and collaborate to drive successful results for their mission.
• The Lightning platform: Government departments and agencies can quickly build apps for desktops and mobile devices with the drag-and-drop visual interface of Lightning App Builder. And with Lightning Components, government employees now have the building blocks to create modern apps that fit their unique requirements.
• The Lightning ecosystem: Salesforce's ecosystem of partners also create and distribute Lightning Components through the Salesforce AppExchange, which gives agencies even more ways to customize their existing solutions or rapidly create entirely new applications with drag-and-drop ease. Every agency can now customize their app experiences to surface the most relevant information for their jobs.

In addition to Lightning, Salesforce continues to add new functionality to the Government Cloud. Last year, Analytics Cloud was included in the Government Cloud FedRAMP Moderate Authority to Operate (ATO), giving users the ability to explore data, uncover new insights and take action instantly from any device. This allows government agencies to make more informed decisions, manage data in an effective way, and provide a level of transparency that helps improve citizen trust. Also, Platform Encryption was recently added to Government Cloud, providing agencies an additional layer of security when handling sensitive data.

Compliance Standards Extended, Bringing New Opportunity to Government Cloud
Salesforce Government Cloud's FedRAMP Moderate ATO has been leveraged to meet the standards of NIST SP 800-171 and DoD IL2, opening up Salesforce's products to a new set of government contractors and agencies.

• NIST SP 800-171:  NIST 800-171 provides recommended requirements for protecting controlled unclassified information in non-federal information systems and organizations.
• DoD IL2: Government Cloud has been granted security approval for IL2 Provisional Authorization from the Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA) leveraging Salesforce's FedRAMP Moderate ATO.

BPAs Accelerate Adoption and Opportunity in Government Cloud
The launch of Government Cloud Lightning comes on the heels of strong customer momentum for Salesforce in the public sector. More than $700 million in recent blanket purchasing agreements (BPAs) have been awarded to resellers and partners for Salesforce implementations and integrations, including $503 million from the General Services Administration, $100 million from U.S. Health and Human Services, and $100 million from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. These new BPAs demonstrate how it is even easier for agencies across all levels of government to purchase, implement, and use Salesforce.

Comments on the News

• "Private sector innovation has changed the way citizens expect to interact with their governments, so providing our customers with modern and secure tools is paramount to increasing citizen satisfaction and engagement," said Vivek Kundra, executive vice president, Salesforce. "The launch of Government Cloud Lightning, along with extended compliance standards and enhancements, will empower agencies, the aerospace and defense market, and government contractors to digitally transform and connect with citizens in new ways."
• "The Government Cloud Lightning ecosystem is a highly anticipated leap forward for the apps that our federal teams are building on Salesforce," said Rusty Pickens, senior advisor for digital platforms at the U.S. Department of State. "Government Cloud Lightning provides us with a modern and clean interface that allows us to build an item once and trust that it will work on any device. Even more importantly, it empowers our diplomats all over the world to access their CRM data right wherever they are, from a mobile device that has all the power of a typical government computer."

Additional Information

• Learn more about Salesforce Government Cloud Lighting at salesforce.com/industries/government

Connect with Salesforce

• Like Salesforce on Facebook at http://facebook.com/salesforce.
• Follow @SalesforceGov on Twitter.

About Salesforce
Salesforce, the Customer Success Platform and world's #1 CRM, empowers companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way. For more information about Salesforce (NYSE: CRM), visit: www.salesforce.com.

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 applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce 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.

¹http://www.gao.gov/highrisk/improving_management_it_acquisitions_operations/why_did_study#t=0
²http://www.people-press.org/files/legacy-pdf/4-15-2013%20Government%20Release.pdf 
³http://www.people-press.org/2015/11/23/beyond-distrust-how-americans-view-their-government/

SOURCE Salesforce

Related Links

http://www.salesforce.com