Salesforce.com unveils Salesforce Summer '08 at Dreamforce Europe

Salesforce.com the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) previewed Salesforce Summer '08 at Dreamforce Europe. Salesforce.com's 26th generation release, Salesforce Summer '08 will include new features for Salesforce Content and Salesforce Ideas, transforming how enterprises collaborate with their communities.

Salesforce Summer '08 will extend salesforce.com's domination of the SaaS industry with new CRM features in sales, marketing, customer service and partner management. Inspired by the feedback from the Salesforce IdeaExchange and consumer Web technologies, Salesforce Summer '08 will deliver an unprecedented level of SaaS and PaaS functionality to the market.  
 
"Collaboration with our communities has transformed the technologies that we have developed.  Now we want every one of our customers to tap into the power of community collaboration," said George Hu, executive vice president marketing, applications and education at salesforce.com. "Salesforce Summer '08 will harness the power of consumer Web technologies to deliver more application and collaboration success than ever before."

New Collaboration Capabilities Harness the Power of Community

The Salesforce Summer '08 release will empower customers to use collaboration to transform their business and their partner, customer and employee communities.

Salesforce Content brings the power of SaaS to managing unstructured data within an enterprise by utilizing the best of consumer Web technologies such as tagging, subscriptions and recommendations. Salesforce Content users manage their documents and unstructured data directly in Salesforce to improve productivity and effectiveness in every corner of the enterprise.

Salesforce Summer '08 will introduce a number of new features for Salesforce Content including:

  • Global Availability - Recognizing that it is becoming increasingly important for businesses of all sizes to work with companies across the globe, the Salesforce Summer '08 release will deliver Salesforce Content to all 15 languages that salesforce.com supports. Users will be able to tap into the power of multi-language search to find relevant materials, no matter where they are or what language they speak.
  • Salesforce Content for Portals - With Salesforce Summer '08, companies will be able to collaborate in Salesforce Content with their partners and customers in the Salesforce Partner Portal and Salesforce Customer Portal. Using the appropriate portals, partners and customers will be able to quickly and easily gain access to relevant content.
  • Content Analytics - This new feature will once and for all end the guessing game when it comes to the effectiveness of corporate materials. Usage metrics will be able to be effectively tracked to determine the most frequently used content among sales reps, marketers and other users. Based on the data gathered from dashboards and reports, the documents, presentations and other materials in Salesforce Content can be optimized for maximum effect.

The second pillar in salesforce.com's collaboration applications is Salesforce Ideas, an entirely new type of application that enables customers to tap into the innovative power of their customer, partner or employee communities by allowing them to post, discuss, and vote on ideas.
   
With Salesforce Summer '08, Salesforce Ideas will introduce completely new features including:

  • Multiple Communities - This new feature will enable companies to create multiple communities in order to better organize and segment the ideas coming from different groups, and provide participants with a forum to engage with the specific communities that most apply to them.
  • Customizable Ideas - With Salesforce Summer '08, users will be able to customize fields in Salesforce Ideas and expose data directly to the original posting. Closely integrated with the Force.com Platform-as-a-Service, Customizable Ideas will also allow users to set up validation rules, workflows and Apex triggers off keywords alerting companies to relevant conversations taking place within their communities. With Customizable Ideas, companies will be able to monitor and respond more effectively to the demands of their communities.
  • Ideas for Partner Portal - Since its release, Salesforce Ideas has enabled companies to effectively engage with their internal and customer communities. With the release of Salesforce Summer '08, companies will be able to capture the unique perspective of their partner community by including Salesforce Ideas in the Salesforce Partner Portal. 

More than 50 New Features Enhance CRM Applications

Salesforce Summer '08 will provide the tools needed to transform customer and partner relationships, and continue to lead the CRM industry in adoption, automation and globalization. The new features that will be available in the Salesforce Summer '08 release extend across salesforce.com's entire suite of SaaS CRM applications including:

Salesforce Partners - The introduction of Salesforce Partners in June of 2006 enabled companies to manage indirect sales channels with Salesforce. Salesforce Partners provides all the visibility into the activities, leads, and deals that companies are working on with partners. To further enhance these partner relationships, Salesforce Summer '08 will provide each salesforce.com customer with two Salesforce to Salesforce connections, at no additional charge. Salesforce to Salesforce enables companies to quickly and easily extend business processes and data across multiple enterprises, without the need for complex integration between companies. With Salesforce Summer '08, every customer will be able to connect with their partners and avoid expensive and complex failed point to point technologies.

Salesforce SFA - Salesforce SFA has consistently been recognized throughout the industry for it's ease of use and high adoption rates. With Salesforce Summer '08, the Dashboard Email Delivery feature will automate the process of updating and delivering dashboards. With this feature, Salesforce SFA users will be able to stay constantly updated and connected to how well their business is performing.

Salesforce Marketing - Salesforce Marketing is one of the industry's leading Web marketing tools, and it is empowering customers to increase their pipeline and more effectively measure results. With Salesforce Summer '08, customers will have better visibility into their leads with the Converted Lead Page feature. With this new feature, companies will be able to see all the related records into which a lead was converted. Gaining easy access to related records will enable companies to spend their time driving leads, instead of searching for information.

Salesforce Call Center and Salesforce Customer Portal - Recently positioned as a  visionary in the Gartner Magic Quadrant, Salesforce Call Center and Salesforce Customer Portal provide everything companies need for both service agents and customers. With Salesforce Summer '08, companies will be able to establish multiple business hours across a single organization with the Global Business Hours feature. Global Business Hours will enable companies to gain greater visibility into the success of their service delivery as it spans the globe or even different time zones.

Salesforce for Google Apps - In April of 2008, salesforce.com and Google came together to announce their second joint product, Salesforce for Google Apps, an entirely new way for business professionals to communicate, collaborate, and work together in real time over the Web.  A simple, yet powerful combination of essential applications for business productivity (email, calendaring, documents, spreadsheets, presentations, instant messaging) and CRM (sales, marketing, service and support, partners), Salesforce for Google Apps offers a complete way for businesses to harness the power of cloud computing without the cost and complexity of managing hardware or software infrastructure.
"Integrating Google Apps with Salesforce is a brilliant and powerful strategic move! It looks like our future will be in the clouds," said David Bergstrom of Yamaha.

Force.com Platform and the AppExchange

Force.com (http://www.force.com/) reinvents the traditional development, deployment and distribution of any business application with platform-as-a-service. Developers, customers and partners can use Force.com to easily create a new generation of on-demand applications and deploy them worldwide as a service.  Force.com allows applications to be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace, enabling all the innovation that Force.com unleashes to be easily distributed to the entire on-demand community.
 
The AppExchange economy continues to expand, with thousands of customers installing applications via the AppExchange. Customers of all sizes can quickly and easily extend Salesforce with additional on-demand business applications available on the AppExchange, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.

About Salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS). The company's portfolio of SaaS applications, including its award-winning CRM, available at http://www.salesforce.com/uk/products/, has revolutionised the ways that customers manage and share business information over the Internet.

The company's Force.com PaaS enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful on-demand applications that deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy across the enterprise. Applications built on the Force.com platform, available at http://www.force.com/uk/, can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange marketplace available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.

As of January 31, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 41,100 customers including ABN AMRO, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, Sprint Nextel, 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/uk/.  

Date - 13/05/2008

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