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Salesforce.com redefines CRM through the power of cloud computing. Again

The company that pioneered "no-software" for sales automation is doubling down on CRM to bring the revolution to every customer touch point
Salesforce CRM Winter '09 expands the definition of CRM to embrace cutting edge collaboration tools that extend beyond the walls of the company
The only CRM built on an enterprise cloud computing platform, Salesforce CRM delivers the speed, flexibility, and performance of the Force.com platform

SAN FRANCISCO, Nov. 3, 2008 -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today redefined CRM with Salesforce CRM's powerful cloud computing approach. Currently, Salesforce CRM is helping more than 47,700 enterprises and 1.1 million subscribers better serve their customers without any of the cost, risk or complexity of traditional, on-premise software. With more than 50 new features, Salesforce CRM Winter '09 enables companies of all sizes to manage their customer interactions across sales, marketing, and customer service. Customers have embraced these new technologies and are receiving extended value and new levels of success from their CRM deployments. Built on the Force.com platform, Salesforce CRM is the fastest, most flexible CRM service on the market today.

"As the leading best-of-breed CRM provider in the world, companies continue to look to salesforce.com to define CRM in the era of cloud computing," said George Hu, Executive Vice President marketing, applications and education at salesforce.com. "We're responding with more investment than ever across our three part CRM strategy - complete CRM for every customer touch point, leading-edge collaboration within and beyond the company, and flexible customization and integration via the Force.com platform. That's why our customers continue to set the industry standard for CRM success."

"With Salesforce CRM, we found an enterprise solution that helped us manage every customer interaction completely in the cloud," said Bill Hoban, CIO, Extra Space Storage. "In eight weeks we were able to integrate Salesforce CRM with our call center, POS system and corporate website - not to mention more than 6 million customer and contact records. We would never have been able to do this so quickly and so successfully with on-premise software."

Expanding the Cloud Computing Revolution in Sales, Marketing and Customer Service

Salesforce CRM has long evangelized the benefits of cloud computing, and now expands these capabilities in its sales, marketing and customer service applications. The new Force.com Sites technology announced today will allow customers to extend Salesforce CRM applications through the creation of interactive Web-to-lead forms, which will enable site visitors to signal interest in products and services via a Web site. Force.com Sites will also enable the quick and easy creation of campaign landing pages integrated directly with Salesforce CRM.

With the acquisition of InStranet in August, Salesforce CRM is the only product on the market today to completely reinvent the customer service experience with a highly-efficient knowledge base application that can be deployed quickly and easily. Through its patented Dimensions technology, which adds the customer's context, such as product or geography, the knowledge base is able to quickly hone in on the right solution and eliminate irrelevant search results.

"This technology has had a significant impact on our ability to rapidly launch new clients and maximize our agents' efficiency. Our 7,000 customer service representatives use the solution on a daily basis, and I see further growth potential," said Alan Giles, CTO, Transcom. "InStranet discovered how to filter out the noise created by the explosion of information that customers and agents must navigate. The combination of InStranet's technology and Salesforce CRM makes a lot of sense."

Cutting Edge Collaboration that Extends Beyond the Walls of the Company

Businesses that thrive in today's market must rely on efficient models to share and collaborate. Salesforce CRM's technology allows enterprises to communicate and collaborate entirely online, with the speed, access and efficiency of the Web.

"Everyone works with people outside their company, and so should your CRM. Salesforce CRM delivers business applications without borders," said Denis Pombriant, Principal, Beagle Research.

Collaborate with Colleagues - Salesforce CRM is the undisputed leader in helping companies effectively share customer data amongst colleagues within an enterprise. Salesforce for Google Apps has seen tremendous momentum and adoption since its launch in April 2008. Already, more than 5,000 salesforce.com customers are using Google Apps. With Salesforce CRM Winter '09, customers can now use Salesforce CRM's content management capability with Google Apps, the leading online productivity suite.

"Salesforce's content management functionality is as revolutionary as PDFs were 15 years ago. For us, it is the killer app," said Bill Rozier, vice president of Global Marketing, Ciena. "We're really excited about the new Google Apps integration, so we can truly create and manage all of our content in the cloud."

Collaborate with Partners - Cloud computing's unique model has enabled Salesforce CRM to easily and securely connect separate Salesforce CRM deployments, allowing companies to share sales leads, contacts, and company information, without the need for complex integration software. With Salesforce Winter '09, salesforce.com announced the free exchange of data between every company in its network.

"At Motorola, we are committed to creating an environment of success for our channel partners which means making it extremely easy to deliver and close opportunities. Salesforce CRM is a one of a kind technology that will help us turbo-charge our channel," said Mark Chellis the Director of Channel Marketing at Motorola. " We've launched the Salesforce Network for Motorola to offer our business partners the same CRM benefits we've achieved in our business."

Collaborate with Customers - With today's introduction of Force.com Sites and the release of Salesforce CRM Winter '09, companies will be able to deploy online customer communities on any public or corporate website with Salesforce Ideas. Salesforce CRM allows companies to bring the 'wisdom of crowds' to businesses for the first time by allowing online communities to submit, discuss and promote ideas. Companies can unleash the power of online communities to drive the best ideas and innovations for their business.

"Using Salesforce Ideas, Dell gathers customer feedback on a global scale and listens and responds to our customers on http://www.IdeaStorm.com," said Bob Pearson, vice president of communities and conversations at Dell. "Listening is essential for companies who want to continually learn, improve and forge lasting relationships with their customers. The Ideas application on the Force.com Sites platform will help make that possible for more companies."

Winter '09 Driving New Levels of Adoption and Success

Since Dreamforce 2007, more than 200 new features have been delivered to salesforce.com customers, including 50+ features in the Salesforce CRM Winter '09 release that enable companies of all sizes to manage their customer interactions across sales, marketing, and customer service. Winter '09 marks the 27th generation of Salesforce CRM, giving customers new technologies that extended the value of their CRM deployments. The numbers speak for themselves, Salesforce CRM has become a vital tool for thousands of companies around the world.

-- Salesforce CRM manages more than 410 million customer accounts for more than 47,700 customers.

-- Salesforce.com processed more than 184 million transactions in a single day, a new company milestone.

-- In just 90 days, the number of records exchanged between companies using Salesforce CRM has grown more than 350%.

The Only CRM Built on an Enterprise Cloud Computing Platform, Force.com

The Force.com platform has enabled Salesforce CRM to become the industry leader at an unprecedented pace. With proven security, reliability and scalability, the Force.com platform's multi-tenant model allows salesforce.com to continuously deliver new applications and features seamlessly to all 47,700 customers. Providing the necessary tools for companies to completely customize and integrate their deployments, the Force.com platform powers Salesforce CRM with unmatched levels of flexibility and performance, all without requiring customers to buy or manage additional infrastructure.

Pricing and Availability

Salesforce CRM Winter '09 is currently available to all 47,700 customers. Customers who purchase Salesforce CRM should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.

Force.com Sites is available today in developer preview. Please visit http://developer.force.com to sign up.

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company's portfolio of SaaS applications, including its award-winning CRM, available at "http://www.salesforce.com/products/" has revolutionized 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/, can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's Force.com AppExchange marketplace available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange/.

As of July 31, 2008, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 47,700 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, or call 1-800-NO- SOFTWARE.

Copyright (c) 2008 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.



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