SALESFORCE.COM is making a big play to change the way software is developed, with a new strategy known as platform-as-a- service. The Californian company pioneered the model of software- as-a-service (SaaS), which sees software accessed over the internet rather than installed at a customer premises.
The chief executive and founder of Salesforce.com, Marc Benioff, predicted that the company would surpass $1 billion in revenues this year on sales of subscriptions to its sales and marketing software.
However, future growth for the company, which was founded by Benioff and other ex-Oracle executives in 1999, will also come from providing a platform that allows developers build, deploy and charge for their own software.
Other internet companies are adopting a similar strategy of providing the infrastructure they developed for their own services for use by customers or developers. Online retailer Amazon.com was the pioneer in the space with Amazon Web Services, which provides on-demand service and server processing power to developers, while Facebook provides a platform to provide applications for its users.
Salesforce.com has packaged up its network, storage, security and business infrastructure as Force.com. "We think Web 3.0 is upon us, it's not something that's going to happen in five or 10 years," said Benioff. "It's happening now and it's about platforms."
To encourage its uptake by entrepreneurs and start-ups, Salesforce.com and Eden Ventures have created the £1 million Force. com Investment Challenge. The creators who build the best application built on Force.com will have the opportunity to negotiate with Eden for a potential investment of up to £1 million.
"This big transformation that is about to happen means there are going to be a lot of capabilities on the internet to let you build your own applications," said Benioff.
Benioff's comments were made at London's Barbican Centre where more than 2,000 customers, partners and developers gathered at Salesforce.com's first European conference. The company also used the event to launch the latest release of its software Summer 08, which adds features popularised on the consumer web such as tagging, subscriptions and recommendations.
Although SaaS is most popular in the US, Salesforce.com had more than 7,000 customers and 140,000 users in Europe, the Middle East and Africa at the end of the first quarter. The company established its European operations in Ireland and still employs more than 100 staff here.
Misys, the banking and healthcare software company, which has a centre in Dublin following the acquisitions of local companies Kindle and Credo in the 1990s, is now Salesforce.com's largest customer in Europe. It is creating a customer portal to 55,000 users using the firms technology.
Benioff also talked up the company's charitable credentials.
Since its foundation, it has had a philanthropic element donating 1 per cent of its equity, staff time and product to registered charities. One Irish charity which has taken advantage of the scheme is the Alzheimer Society.
