Salesforce.com Expands Chatter Private Beta and Launches ChatterExchange - Accelerating the Market Shift to Cloud 2, the Next Cloud Computing Paradigm

NEW YORK, April 8 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced it is accelerating the market shift to the next cloud computing paradigm, Cloud 2. The first phase of cloud computing was about leveraging technologies that were low cost, fast and easy to use on your desktop. Cloud 2 represents the next generation of cloud computing, one that is inherently social, collaborative and delivers real-time access to data and information across new mobile devices.

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To meet the overwhelming demand for social enterprise apps, and to accelerate the shift to Cloud 2, salesforce.com has extended the Salesforce Chatter private beta program to more than 500 companies, including customers like Enterasys Networks and Saatchi & Saatchi. In addition, the company launched the AppExchange 2, with the ChatterExchange, a new category for social enterprise applications.

Comments on the News

• "We are in the era of Cloud 2, where social networking use has surpassed e-mail, Facebook and YouTube use have outpaced search, and new mobile devices like the iPad are creating entirely new ways to interact with information," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "With today's announcement, salesforce.com is advancing the shift to Cloud 2, where productivity gains are going to come from real-time collaboration available on any device. We've seen the future of enterprise software, and it looks more like Facebook on the iPad than Yahoo on the PC."
• "The best innovations from the consumer Web are moving to the enterprise forcing software to evolve," said Denis Pombriant, principle, Beagle Research. "The next decade will see demands for more sustainable business processes and cloud computing will meet the challenge by continuing to tilt away from the desktop and on-premise infrastructure, toward location independent computing that accesses data in the cloud on any mobile device."

Chatter Brings Cloud 2 to the Enterprise

Companies of all sizes and industries have realized that the cloud computing model can deliver tremendous success -- it is low cost, fast and easy to use. With the rise of Facebook, Google and Twitter, companies are realizing there is a smarter way to harness the power of the social networking services made popular by the consumer Web. Salesforce.com accelerates the move to the next cloud computing paradigm, Cloud 2, with Chatter. Chatter is the first social enterprise collaboration solution with profiles, real-time feeds and status updates for not only people, but apps and data become social as well.

Today salesforce.com has announced that the Chatter beta program has been extended to more than 500 customers due to overwhelming demand. Later this year, all 72,500 salesforce.com customers will receive Chatter at no additional charge, making their deployments immediately social.

Comments on the News

• "Saatchi & Saatchi is beta-testing Chatter and we love it," said Brand DuBose, management director, Saatchi & Saatchi. "Chatter revolutionizes the way our geographically dispersed teams can collaborate and boost productivity from anywhere. With Chatter, our people can change the game by sharing critical information, insights, and best practices to ensure that our biggest ideas and best work are implemented in real-time."

Salesforce.com's Service Cloud 2 Goes Social with Chatter

Salesforce.com has extended the Chatter private beta to more than 250 Service Cloud 2 customers, including Enterasys Networks so they may realize the power of collaborative customer service. Now, the Service Cloud with Chatter allows service agents to stay on top of the most critical customer updates, track service level agreements and knowledge changes, and instantly collaborate with experts across departments to resolve complex customer cases faster, regardless of where the answer may reside. Nearly 9,000 companies are currently using the Service Cloud to realize tremendous benefits. In combining the Service Cloud and Chatter, companies can boost productivity gains by empowering service agents with powerful new capabilities for:

• Monitoring Priority Cases: Service agents can stay on top of high priority cases, updates to critical knowledge articles, and the latest product updates
• Locating Expertise: Service agents can follow experts across their organization and instantly get help from other agents, other departments, or from across the company
• Real-Time Case Collaboration: For high priority cases, service supervisors can assemble the best expertise and information to close complex cases faster
• SLA Management: Salesforce Chatter proactively can alert service agents of upcoming service level agreement milestones that they must meet
• Sales-Service Alignment: Service agents and sales reps can share the latest case and opportunity updates for their customer to ensure good service means good business

Comments on the News

• "Enterasys Networks' swift customer service engagement depends on addressing open cases with the right expertise so reps can resolve particular issues the first time," said Dan Petlon, CIO, Enterasys Networks. "The Service Cloud 2 with Chatter is truly a game-changer in that it allows us to find experts quickly with the power of real-time enterprise collaboration behind each rep."

AppExchange 2 Introduces ChatterExchange: More than Two Dozen New Cloud 2 Apps

Salesforce.com today unveiled the AppExchange 2, which reflects the shift to Cloud 2 and now includes the ChatterExchange, a new category for social enterprise apps. Since its launch in 2005, the AppExchange has been a phenomenal success, having been called the "iTunes of Business Software" by Forbes and winning awards from the SIIA, SD Times and others. With more than 1,000 apps and service listings the AppExchange has reached a number of other amazing milestones:

• Customers have deployed more than 240,000 applications via AppExchange
• More than 40 percent of salesforce.com customers have deployed 1 or more apps via AppExchange
• More than 12,000 leads are passed each month to salesforce.com partners via AppExchange
• Partners on the AppExchange have received more than $800 million in venture capital funding over the last 5 years.

The AppExchange 2 extends the AppExchange's rich history of providing a single location for customers to try and buy new solutions that can extend the benefits of cloud computing with social-enabled enterprise apps. With the shift to Cloud 2, the demand for social-enabled enterprise apps is becoming clear and compelling. Chatter's rich suite of social collaboration components, including profiles, status updates, and real-time feeds are part of Force.com, enabling developers and salesforce.com partners to build new social business apps. The salesforce.com community has already responded to this new innovation opportunity which is reflected in the newly created ChatterExchange.

• More than 12 Chatter-Enabled partner applications are now available in the ChatterExchange on AppExchange 2, including: Appirio, CA, Inc., DocuSign, EchoSign, Fairsail, FinancialForce.com, Genius.com, Jobpartners, Jobscience, ServiceMax, Xactium and more.
• Additionally, more than 15 Force.com Labs apps are available for free in the ChatterExchange on AppExchange 2 to enhance customer Chatter implementations. These include tools and add ons such as: ChatterViz, Chatter Case Triage, Chatter Mass Follower, Chatter Timeline, Chatter Live Tag Cloud, Chatter + Google Alerts, and more.

When Chatter becomes generally available later this year, all 150,000 custom apps built on the Force.com platform can immediately become social.

Comments on the News:

• "CA shares salesforce.com's vision for customer success in the cloud," said Brian Bell, senior vice president and general manager of the Project and Portfolio Management business unit at CA, Inc. "With the social components of the Force.com platform, inherently collaborative processes like agile development can be amplified. Cloud-based apps like CA Agile Vision can now unlock the innovation potential across an entire enterprise."
• "This is a new kind of business collaboration we've never seen before," said Jeremy Roche, CEO, FinancialForce.com. "With these new enterprise social capabilities, our new FinancialForce.com application, Chatterbox, has the potential to tear down the walls between the front and back office. It enables companies to proactively monitor business activity and focus the company around solving the big problems -- improving customer service, driving down costs and increasing the bottom line."
• "Everyday, more companies realize that the cloud computing model liberates the field service function from archaic and cobbled together solutions," said Dave Yarnold, CEO, ServiceMax. "Combining enterprise social capabilities of Chatter with our industry leading field service application will transform the way our customers collaborate, connect and share valuable customer service information across their organizations."

Pricing and Availability

• Salesforce Chatter is currently scheduled to be generally available in calendar year 2010. Customers who purchase salesforce.com technologies should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.
• Salesforce Chatter will be included in all paid editions of Salesforce CRM and Force.com.
• Service Cloud 2 is available now and pricing starts at $65 per user per month
• AppExchange 2 and ChatterExchange are live today, please visit http://www.appexchange.com/chatter
• Customers should contact partners for pricing and availability of their applications.

Supporting Resources

• For more information about Salesforce Chatter, please visit http://www.salesforce.com/chatter
• For more information about the ChatterExchange category on the AppExchange 2, please visit http://www.appexchange/chatter
• Follow salesforce.com on Twitter @salesforce and join the conversation with #Cloud2

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, the company's platform and CRM applications (http://www.salesforce.com/crm) have revolutionized the way companies collaborate and communicate with their customers, including:

• The Sales Cloud, for sales force automation and contact management
• The Service Cloud, for customer service and support solutions
• Chatter, for social collaboration
• The Force.com platform, for custom application development
• The AppExchange, the world's leading marketplace for enterprise cloud computing applications

Salesforce.com offers the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing. As of January 31, 2010, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 72,500 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 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, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

SOURCE salesforce.com