Salesforce.com Announces Next-Generation Sales Cloud with Industry-Leading Social and Mobile Innovations

SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 19, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- DREAMFORCE 2012 – Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced the next-generation Salesforce Sales Cloud with industry-leading social and mobile innovations. The launch of Salesforce Touch, powered by HTML5, now brings Salesforce to any mobile device, regardless of platform, and empowers reps to collaborate on deals anytime, anywhere. Salesforce.com also announced Chatter Communities for Partners, which will connect companies with distributors, resellers, suppliers and more to drive sales. Additionally, the new Salesforce Data.com Social Key will deliver the missing link between contact data and social networks.

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Comments on the News

• "Mobile and social technologies have sparked a revolution in the way that companies connect with customers to grow their businesses," said Linda Crawford, EVP and GM of Sales Cloud, salesforce.com. "And mobile and social innovations like Salesforce Touch and Chatter Communities for Partners are just the latest examples of the relentless focus on customer success that has made the Sales Cloud the world's #1 sales app."
• "The social revolution has created a data explosion–and businesses must leverage that data to grow their business," said Andy MacMillan, senior vice president and general manager, Data.com. "Built especially for Salesforce, the Data.com Social Key will empower companies to derive value from social data for the first time, directly within the world's #1 sales app."
• "Social is all about relationships and we're a relationship bank," said Steve Ellis, executive vice president, Wells Fargo Wholesale Banking. "Salesforce is one tool we are using that helps us connect across the company in order to deepen customer relationships."

Salesforce Touch: The Power of Salesforce on any Device
A mobile and social revolution is taking place, sparking staggering growth in mobile device usage across enterprises. The number of tablets deployed in the workplace is expected to increase 48 percent annually over the next four years for a total of 96 million enterprise tablets by 2016, according to Infinite Research.

Salesforce.com led the industry in the shift to mobile CRM with native Salesforce Mobile and Chatter Mobile apps and is now extending its leadership with the launch of Salesforce Touch. Salesforce Touch enables employees to easily enter, access and collaborate around data in Salesforce by making it accessible immediately. Powered by HTML5, Salesforce Touch is optimized for tablets and phones including Amazon Kindle, iPhone, iPad and Android devices. Sales reps can now increase productivity by taking advantage of even the smallest periods of downtime to quickly log follow up action items after a meeting, uncover information to prepare for an important presentation or get an approval needed to move a deal forward. Salesforce Touch lets reps spend more time connecting with customers and selling, and less time entering and accessing data, so they can close more deals.

Chatter Communities for Partners: Connecting to Drive Growth
Many companies drive significant revenue via indirect sales channels, but legacy partner portals typically lack the tools they need to effectively collaborate. New Chatter Communities for Partners, built on the Chatter Communities platform, is the next generation portal–an interactive social community to enable companies to quickly and easily create multiple private, branded communities in the context of business process–all with the trusted security and sharing model of Salesforce. Now companies, along with their partners, suppliers and distributors, will be able to create custom communities to drive more sales through seamless deal registration, access to proven sales tools and collaboration with the right experts.

Data.com Social Key: The Missing Link Between Contact Data and Social Networks
The unprecedented growth of social networks has created an explosion of new kinds of data, further compounding the challenges of how companies unlock the value of business data. Since its inception, Data.com has helped businesses engage customers by unleashing the power of traditional data to target prospects. Now, Social Key will unite the best context from social networks with the business framework of traditional data, enabling enterprises to build even stronger relationships with customers and close more deals, faster. By harnessing real-time public social data like tweets, blogs and YouTube videos, companies now have a view into what a customer talks and cares about. By linking that information with traditional data like employer and phone number, enterprises will have the data perspective necessary to develop deeper connections with customers.

Salesforce Sales Cloud: Powering Growth
Salesforce.com customers including Kimberly-Clark and Rossignol have deployed the Sales Cloud to connect with their customers in new ways and sell better in the social era.  Combined with Salesforce Chatter, the leading enterprise social network, the Sales Cloud lets reps tap into the wisdom of employees to immediately harness the resources they need to close deals. According to a recent third party survey, companies who have deployed the Sales Cloud have seen an average 32 percent increase in lead conversion, an average 32 percent increase in sales productivity, an average 44 percent increase in forecast accuracy and an average 27 percent increase in sales.

Pricing and Availability

• Salesforce Touch is generally available today on iOS devices, and included in all Salesforce editions.
• Chatter Communities for Partners is currently scheduled to be available in limited pilot in fall 2012.
• Chatter Communities for Partners is currently scheduled to be generally available the second half of 201.
• Data.com Social Key is currently scheduled to be generally available the second half of 2013.
• Pricing of Chatter Communities for Partners and Data.com Social Key will be announced at general availability.

Additional Resources

• Watch Dreamforce 2012 live on Salesforce Live at http://facebook.com/dreamforce
• Like salesforce.com on Facebook: http://facebook.com/salesforce
• Like the Sales Cloud on Facebook: http://facebook.com/salescloud
• Like Data.com on Facebook: http://facebook.com/datadotcom
• Read more about the Sales Cloud news on the salesforce.com blog
• Read more about the Data.com news on the salesforce.com blog
• To learn more about the Sales Cloud, visit: http://www.salesforce.com/sales-cloud/overview/
• Follow @Salesforce on Twitter
• Click to Tweet: NEW: @Salesforce announces next-gen @SalesCloud with Salesforce Touch, Partner Communities and @Datadotcom Social Key: http://bit.ly/U2HAgs

About Dreamforce
Dreamforce 2012 is the world's largest vendor technology conference, welcoming more than 90,000 registered attendees to experience the power of the social revolution. With more than 750 sessions and 350 cloud companies in the expo, attendees can participate in interactive sessions, hands-on training with cutting-edge technology, thousands of live demos and unparalleled networking. In addition, Dreamforce welcomes special guests Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group, Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric, Gen. Colin Powell, U.S.A.—ret., Tony Robbins, entrepreneur, author and peak performance strategist and the Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dreamforce 2012 offers attendees everything they need to connect with customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways.

About salesforce.com
Founded in 1999, salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing leader. Using salesforce.com's social and mobile cloud technologies, companies can connect with customers, partners and employees in entirely new ways. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, the company's platform and apps give customers the tools to create a social front office and revolutionize the way they sell, service, market, collaborate, work, and innovate.

• Grow your business with the world's #1 sales app, Salesforce Sales Cloud
• Deliver amazing customer service with the award-winning Salesforce Service Cloud
• Listen, engage, advertise, and measure social media marketing with the Salesforce Marketing Cloud
• Achieve breakthrough collaboration and productivity withSalesforce Chatter
• Align, motivate and drive performance with Salesforce Work.com
• Build social and mobile cloud apps on theSalesforce Platform and extend success with the world's leading enterprise app marketplace, the AppExchange

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.

Copyright © 2012 salesforce.com, inc.  All rights reserved.  Salesforce, Chatter, Sales Cloud, Service Cloud, Marketing Cloud, Work.com, AppExchange, Salesforce Platform, and others are trademarks of salesforce.com, inc.  Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE Salesforce.com