Salesforce.com Granted Authority to Operate from HHS for Both PaaS and SaaS Offerings

SAN FRANCISCO, May 30, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the world's #1 CRM platform, announced today that it has been granted an Authority to Operate (ATO) from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) on the new Salesforce Government Cloud, which includes both platform as a service (PaaS) and software as a service (SaaS). With this ATO, salesforce.com will be able to further support government organizations who are looking to achieve the significant cost, agility and innovation benefits of cloud computing.

Comments on the News

• "Government organizations need to be assured that their IT solutions are safe, reliable and trustworthy," said Dave Rey, senior vice president of public sector, salesforce.com. "With HHS's authorization and our new Government Cloud, salesforce.com will give government organizations one location for all their cloud solutions. We are helping to build a connected government."
• "The ability to take work on the go and manage complex projects from anywhere is critical to GSA's highly mobile workforce," said Sonny Hashmi, acting chief information officer at the U.S. General Services Administration (GSA). "GSA uses cloud platforms to run agency-wide initiatives like project management, requests for funding and investment management, with workflows, approvals and social feeds built in. These capabilities help us to better connect with U.S. citizens."

Salesforce Government Cloud

Salesforce.com has announced its new Government Cloud, planned for availability to customers in June, has been granted an HHS ATO. HHS used the FedRAMP baseline security requirements when granting the ATO. The FedRAMP Program Management Office is currently conducting their completeness review to ensure all FedRAMP documentation requirements were met and expects their review to be complete in June.

Enhanced benefits of the Government Cloud include:

• Managed by U.S. citizens located in the U.S., currently pursuing federal background checks.
• To be utilized by U.S. federal, state and local governments, federally funded research and development centers and U.S. government contractors.
• Supported by isolated multitenant infrastructure including servers, storage, routers, switches and networking.

PaaS and SaaS Authorization                                    

With the HHS ATO for both PaaS and SaaS, public sector organizations can leverage this ATO and use traditional, commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) applications from salesforce.com and use the Salesforce1 Platform to customize and extend them with additional functionality, or to build new applications all within the same secure cloud environment. Additionally, they can now develop and run applications over the Internet, eliminating the expense and complexity of evaluating, buying, configuring and managing all the hardware and software needed for custom-built applications.

Growing Public Sector Ecosystem Building Solutions on Salesforce1

Leveraging the Salesforce1 Platform, companies are building new industry-specific technologies that help government organizations to manage their operations in the cloud with the power of social, mobile and connected apps. More than 100 apps from salesforce.com ecosystem partners, including BasicGov, LaunchPad and MB&A Outcome, are available for government organizations on the Salesforce1 AppExchange.

• BasicGov Systems offers a comprehensive operations management platform that enables governments to cut costs while ensuring the efficient delivery of quality services to citizens. They have built an app on the Salesforce1 Platform that allows government agencies to streamline all aspects of permitting and licensing, helping governments connect with citizens in a whole new way.
• LaunchPad delivers cloud, social and mobile technology to the workforce, economic and community development sectors. Its workforce development application allows governments to make employment, economic and community development social and mobile, driving job creation.
• MB&A Outcome is a veteran owned full life cycle management consulting company supporting government organization field services solutions, inspections and compliance.

Additional Information

• For more information on salesforce.com's government solutions, please visit: http://www.salesforce.com/industries/public-sector/ 
• Explore industry-specific partner solutions on the Salesforce AppExchange: http://appexchange.salesforce.com  
• Follow @salesforce on Twitter: http://twitter.com/salesforce  
• Like salesforce.com on Facebook: http://facebook.com/salesforce

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the world's largest provider of customer relationship management (CRM) software. For more information about salesforce.com (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.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://salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

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