Salesforce.com Customers Emit 95 Percent Less Carbon than Companies Running Comparable On-Premise Systems

NEW YORK, March 3, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- CLOUDFORCE 2011 -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, released the results of a study it commissioned with WSP Environment & Energy, which estimates that customers of salesforce.com's cloud computing services produce 95 percent less carbon, on average, compared with running equivalent software in on-premise application servers.

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The study also concluded that massively scalable, multitenant cloud platforms are on average 64 percent more carbon-efficient than so-called "private clouds" that don't use multitenancy. Private clouds typically are run out of third-party data centers hired to run individual companies' IT operations.

"Our analysis shows that cloud computing platforms, like salesforce.com's, are substantially more energy- and carbon-efficient than either on-premise systems or third-party data centers," WSP wrote in the report. "Cloud computing will play a crucial role in the sustainability of IT."

Comments on the News:

• "Cloud 2 is all about a new world that's social, mobile, open, and green," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "With salesforce.com's multitenant model, organizations that value sustainability can give their users powerful enterprise apps without the high cost, complexity and CO2 emissions associated with on-premise systems or false clouds that still require companies to buy hardware and install software."
• "This study proves what I've suspected for years – the use of public cloud computing offers significant energy and environmental advantages," said Jonathan G. Koomey, Ph.D., consulting professor of civil and environmental engineering, Stanford University, who reviewed the analysis. "The cloud's diversity of users and economies of scale make it tough to beat from either an environmental or cost perspective."

Multitenancy Equals Greater Efficiency

The Salesforce Force.com platform runs approximately 270,000 custom and Salesforce applications for more than 92,300 customers. Because of salesforce.com's multitenant architecture, all customers – no matter what size or where they are located – use the same infrastructure, much like tenants in an apartment building.

The multitenant design also means salesforce.com runs significantly fewer servers and consumes less energy than on-premise systems or private clouds. The WSP study shows that the usage and energy efficiencies of multitenant cloud computing extend to the environment.

According to WSP:

• Salesforce.com's multitenant cloud computing architecture is on average 95% more carbon efficient than on-premise systems and 64% more efficient than private clouds.
• The salesforce.com community saved an estimated 170,900 tons of carbon in 2010 -- the equivalent of taking 37,000 cars off the road, or avoiding the consumption of 19.5 million gallons of gas.

Salesforce.com Unveils Industry's First Daily Carbon Savings Estimator

The company today unveiled the industry's first daily carbon savings estimator, showing real-time carbon savings for the entire salesforce.com customer community.

In addition, companies can estimate their individual carbon savings by visiting the www.salesforce.com/sustainability website. Companies simply fill in their location, number of users, and whether they use on-premise software, a private cloud, or some combination of the two. The site will estimate the company's current carbon emissions, and compare that with a true cloud computing service that's based on a multitenant architecture.

Additional Resources:

• For more information on salesforce.com and sustainability, visit http://www.salesforce.com/sustainability
• To view an estimate of the salesforce.com customer community's daily carbon savings, visit http://www.salesforce.com/green

About Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company that has transformed the way companies collaborate and communicate. Salesforce.com is leading the effort to bring Cloud 2, the next paradigm for computing, to the enterprise by offering its customers the social collaboration, mobility and openness that are the hallmark of this new world. The company's platform and application services include:

• Salesforce Chatter, a private social network for your enterprise
• The Sales Cloud, for sales force automation and contact management
• The Service Cloud, for customer service and support solutions
• The Jigsaw Data Cloud, for ensuring data integrity and quality
• The Force.com platform, for custom application development
• Heroku, for building social and mobile apps in Ruby
• 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, 2011, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 92,300 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.

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