Salesforce.com Completes Acquisition of Heroku

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced it has completed its acquisition of Heroku, the privately held cloud platform for writing Ruby-based applications. The acquisition positions salesforce.com to take a greater share of the public cloud services market, projected by IDC to reach $55.5 billion in 2014.

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

Heroku is the leading Ruby platform-as-a-service, built from the ground up to work in an open environment and take advantage of the Ruby language. Ruby has become the leading development language used to write Cloud 2 apps that are social, collaborative and deliver real-time access to information across mobile devices. Today, Heroku powers more than 110,000 apps, written by an avid following of Ruby developers.

Comments on the News

"Heroku is the leading Ruby application platform and Ruby is the language of the future, driving the next generation of cloud applications that are real-time, social and mobile," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "With Heroku, our platform can become the cornerstone of the next-generation of cloud computing."

"Cloud app platforms are redefining how applications are built and run -- with an order of magnitude improvement in developer productivity and business agility," said Byron Sebastian, Heroku CEO. "We're excited about accelerating Heroku's -- and Ruby's -- momentum in leading this industry transformation."

Accelerating the Enterprise Shift to Cloud 2

Salesforce.com anticipates that the acquisition will help it attract and serve a critical mass of developers, customers and ISVs wanting an open, scalable and trusted Cloud 2 platform. Heroku and salesforce.com share a common vision of providing an open and portable programming environment that doesn't require customers to take on the expense or maintenance headaches that come with buying and deploying hardware and software. In fact, Heroku was built with the same multi-tenant philosophy that is the hallmark of salesforce.com's Force.com platform.

Salesforce.com not only gains a highly talented team and access to the rapidly expanding community of Ruby developers, but also gets technology and intellectual property assets that don't exist anywhere else. Salesforce.com expects that -- together with VMforce, the enterprise Java cloud for the more than 6 million Java developers -- Heroku will enable the company to become the leading platform provider for a broad array of Cloud 2 applications.

About Heroku

Heroku was founded in 2007 by Orion Henry, James Lindenbaum and Adam Wiggins, with the goal of creating a platform-as-a-service that would make deploying, managing and scaling next-generation web applications as easy as writing them. The industry-leading Ruby application platform, Heroku features a workflow and interface that mimics how developers work. Heroku's multi-tenant architecture means no virtual machines to manage, no software to install, and no complicated platform stacks to manage and tune. Developers can focus on writing their code – and Heroku takes care of everything else. Based in San Francisco, Heroku has about 30 employees.

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.

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains certain forward-looking statements about salesforce.com and Heroku, including statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning salesforce.com's acquisition of Heroku, anticipated product information and strategy, benefits of the acquisition to customers and others in the industry, growth in the developer community, transitions and shifts in cloud computing, the continued adoption of the Ruby programming language, use of the Ruby programming language to develop future cloud applications, salesforce.com's ability to become the cornerstone of the next generation of cloud computing, salesforce.com's objective of attracting a critical mass of developers, customers and ISV's, growth in salesforce.com's market share for public IT cloud services, growth in the overall market for public IT cloud services, future penetration of cloud services into enterprises, and general business outlook. When used in this press release, the words "can", "will", "intends", "expects", "is expected", similar expressions and any other statements that are not historical facts are intended to identify those assertions as forward-looking statements. Any such statement may be influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of salesforce.com or Heroku, that could cause actual outcomes and results to be materially different from those projected, described, expressed or implied in this press release due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the anticipated synergies and benefits of the combined companies may not be achieved, the combined companies may experience delays, unexpected costs or be unable to complete integration activities in a timely manner, if at all, responses from competitors, customers and developers, general economic conditions in the markets in which either company does business, and the possibility that salesforce.com or Heroku may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors. Accordingly, no assurances can be given that any of the events anticipated by the forward-looking statements will transpire or occur, or if any of them do so, what impact they will have on the results of operations or financial condition of salesforce.com or Heroku.

In addition, please refer to the documents that salesforce.com files with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. These filings identify and address other important factors that could cause salesforce.com's financial and operational results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements set forth in this press release. You are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Neither salesforce.com nor Heroku is under any duty to update any of the information in this press release.

Copyright (c) 2011 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