Salesforce.com Recognized With Five-Star Partner Rating in 2010 Everything Channel Partner Program Guide

SAN FRANCISCO, April 23 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced it has been recognized by Everything Channel as one of North America's top information technology (IT) vendors for its partner program. Additionally, salesforce.com's partner program was recognized with a Five-Star Partner rating, making it part of the elite subset of Partner Program Guide vendors who give solution providers the best partnering elements in their channel programs.

(Logo:  http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO)

Salesforce.com– First to Bring the Benefits of Enterprise Cloud Computing to the Channel

This recognition of salesforce.com's partner program can be attributed to a number of programs and resources introduced in the past year to help the channel build their cloud businesses, including:

• The Force.com VAR Program – The first-ever channel program for cloud platforms enables VARs to resell Force.com and build businesses developing and delivering custom applications in the cloud for their clients.
• The AppExchange 2 Services Listings for solution providers – The most complete marketplace for cloud computing now provides a way for solution providers to directly market their solutions and expertise to salesforce.com's 72,500 customers.
• The brand-new Salesforce.com Partner Portal – Built completely on Force.com, the portal contains a variety of content to help partners build their cloud businesses including technical tools, marketing best practices, and sales enablement resources.
• The Consultant Resource Center – The first-ever best practices center for cloud solution providers offers a rich set of technical reference materials and implementation resources to help them deliver flawless customer deployments.

Comments on the News:

• "It's an honor to be recognized with a Five-Star Partner rating for our commitment to the channel and our new program offerings and services for partners," said George Hu, executive vice president of marketing and alliances, salesforce.com. "Cloud computing provides an unprecedented competitive advantage to our more than 3,000 partners through the ability to deliver solutions faster and more effectively to their customers without having to worry about the hindrances of traditional software."
• "Our salesforce.com partnership has been key to our rapid growth and our ability to deliver innovative cloud solutions to enterprises around the world," said Narinder Singh, CMO and head of products for Appirio. "In just four years, we've been engaged with many of salesforce.com's largest Salesforce CRM and Force.com deployments, garnered more than 5,000 product customers partly through our participation on the AppExchange 2, and moved hundreds of thousands of end users to the cloud."  
• "Salesforce.com and cloud computing have removed the barriers of traditional software and enabled us to grow our business at a rapid pace," said Adam Caplan, founder and CEO, ModelMetrics. "The new channel programs it launched in the past year are a clear indication of salesforce.com's commitment to our success and bringing the power of cloud computing to every business."
• "We are pleased to deliver to the channel an exclusive list of the leading vendor channel programs with details about key technologies, program opportunities, and information on the hottest new program offerings," said Kelley Damore, vice president, editorial director, Everything Channel. "The quality of a technology vendor's partner program determines how profitable its partners will be. For their commitment to their business partners and efforts to build quality programs, we congratulate those recognized as this year's Five-Star Partner Program winners for helping to drive greater revenue in the channel."

About the Everything Channel Partner Program Guide and Five-Star Partner Rating  

• Research for the 2010 Everything Channel Partner Program Guide and the Five-Star Partner Program rating was conducted by Everything Channel's research department.
• Everything Channel analyzed 130 vendor programs rating vendors' responses to in-depth questions about their partner programs in the five elements of sales support, partner profitability, partner ecosystem development/management, partner communication/marketing, and demand generation.
• To ensure fair comparisons, companies were placed in one of four categories based on company size (Enterprise, Midsize, Small and Emerging).  
• Questions from each section were scored individually and weighted appropriately.  
• The Five-Star rating is bestowed on programs whose overall rating is among the elite based on company size.
• The PPG list and those companies recognized as Five-Star appears in the March 29 issue of CRN magazine and online at www.Channelweb.com.

Additional Resources:

• More information on the salesforce.com partner program can be found here: www.salesforce.com/partners
• Follow salesforce.com on Twitter @salesforce

About Everything Channel (www.everythingchannel.com, www.channelweb.com)

Everything Channel, headquartered in Framingham, MA, is a technology marketing and sales solutions company.  Through its "Complete Technology Channel Solution," Everything Channel offers the right business tools to accelerate technology sales.  From branding and recruiting to marketing and sales, Everything Channel offers technology marketers the unmatched breadth and depth of global brands and market intelligence combined with unparalleled audience loyalty and credibility serving all technology sales channels through an extensive database.  Everything Channel provides innovative field sales and marketing solutions to the sellers of technology to achieve measurable and significant results.

About United Business Media Limited

UBM (UBM.L) focuses on two principal activities: worldwide information distribution, targeting and monitoring; and, the development and monetisation of B2B communities and markets. UBM's businesses inform markets and serve professional commercial communities -- from doctors to game developers, from journalists to jewelry traders, from farmers to pharmacists -- with integrated events, online, print and business information products. Our 6,500 staff in more than 30 countries are organised into specialist teams that serve these communities, bringing buyers and sellers together, helping them to do business and their markets to work effectively and efficiently. For more information, go to www.ubm.com.

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.

Copyright (c) 2010 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