Salesforce.com Raises the Stakes for Enterprise Cloud Computing Platforms With New Force.com Visual Process Manager

Force.com now the first cloud computing platform that enables companies to design and deploy business processes inside their apps, without software Powerful new platform service extends Force.com's 'five times faster' advantage over .NET and other software platforms Liberates corporate IT to focus on innovation, not infrastructure, with point-and-click process design versus low-level coding


SAN FRANCISCO, Feb. 3  /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced the availability of Force.com Visual Process Manager, a new capability of the Force.com platform that will help companies rapidly automate any business process. With the Force.com Visual Process Manager (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/process), customers can, for the first time, visually design any complex business process with an intuitive, visual design tool, and instantly run it in the cloud.

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Companies in a wide variety of industries, including telecommunications, financial services, and manufacturing are looking for faster, easier and less complicated ways to automate their important business processes that connect their customers, employees, and operations. With Force.com Visual Process Manager, organizations can now build business process applications with greater flexibility and automate processes across all departments. Examples include:

  --  Sales: Call scripting and sales methodology automation
  --  Service: Customer issue resolution and product returns
  --  Finance: Billing and collections
  --  HR: Employee onboarding and performance management
  --  Legal: Contract management and Sarbanes-Oxley compliance
  --  Operations: Surveys and supplier management




Prior to the Force.com Visual Process Manager, companies had to buy expensive on-premise software, hardware and infrastructure to automate processes. Furthermore, they could not innovate on these processes once they were deployed because the complexity of the software made changes cost-prohibitive.

Force.com Visual Process Manager: Rapidly Automate Business Processes in the Cloud

The Force.com Visual Process Manager combines the elegance of visual process design with the simplicity, low cost, and quick results of the Force.com cloud computing platform - empowering customers to continuously refine and enhance processes to improve operational efficiency or fulfill regulatory compliance. Since it's part of the Force.com platform, businesses can create dynamic and sophisticated business processes within their current Sales Cloud 2 and Service Cloud 2 deployments or custom Force.com applications. Force.com Visual Process Manager helps companies automate specific business processes by guiding users through multiple steps and recommending the next course of action, all without any coding. Features of the Force.com Visual Process Manager include:

  --  Process Designer - The Process Designer enables companies to easily
      design business processes via an intuitive user interface. It includes
      a library of process components such as presentation components like
      forms, questions, and choices, and logic components, like task
      assignments, decision trees, and approval processes. These components
      can be added to a visual process design diagram through simple
      drag-and-drop actions.
  --  Process Wizard Builder - The Process Wizard Builder enables companies
      to easily design wizards that walk end-users, step-by-step, through
      their business process.
  --  Process Simulator - With Process Simulator, customers can optimize the
      process design by simulating complex processes before they are
      deployed. For the first time, companies can now test the process flow
      entirely in the cloud, identify bottlenecks and conflicts, and
      immediately revise by reviewing each phase of a process.
  --  Real-time Process Engine - The real-time process engine runs all of a
      company's sophisticated processes and automatically scales to meet the
      needs of any size business. Based on the engine, complex processes can
      be carried out while enforcing business rules and adhering to best
      practices.




The Force.com Visual Process Manager is based on technology acquired from Informavores. Salesforce.com acquired Informavores in 2009. Terms were not disclosed.

  Comments on the News
  --  "The new Force.com Visual Process Manager is another example of why
      Force.com has become the cloud computing platform of choice in the
      enterprise," said George Hu, executive vice president, marketing and
      alliances, salesforce.com. "By eliminating the cost and complexity of
      legacy on-premise platforms like .NET, Websphere, and Lotus Notes,
      Force.com's multitenant approach helps enterprises build apps five
      times faster and at half the cost."
  --  "The use of Force.com Visual Process Manager furthers Saveology.com's
      goal of consolidating our technology architecture and moving more of
      our business processes into the cloud leveraging the Force.com
      platform," said Barry Newman, vice president of IT, Saveology.com. "We
      continue to see improvements in productivity and time to market for
      new offerings and processes."
  --  "Building and managing business processes with on-premise software has
      been needlessly complex and costly, requiring too much custom code and
      expensive infrastructure," said Jeffrey M. Kaplan, Managing Director
      of THINKstrategies and founder of the SaaS Showplace. "Force.com
      Visual Process Manager offers an easy-to-use process design tool that
      organizations can use on a pay-as-you-go basis to more quickly and
      cost-effectively build and manage business processes via the cloud."


  Force.com - The Industry's Leading Enterprise Cloud Computing Platform
  --  Force.com is salesforce.com's enterprise cloud computing platform
      (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-platform/).
  --  Force.com provides everything companies need to quickly build and
      deliver business applications in the cloud, including a cloud
      database, powerful analytics, real-time workflow and approvals,
      programmable cloud logic, integration, mobile deployment, programmable
      user interface and Web site capabilities.
  --  Customers and partners have built more than 135,000 custom
      applications on Force.com to run their businesses, including, supply
      chain management, compliance tracking, brand management, accounts
      receivable, claims processing, time-off applications and much more.
  --  Force.com enables companies to build and deliver applications five
      times faster and at about half the cost of traditional client/server
      software platforms.


  Pricing and Availability
  --  Force.com Visual Process Manager is now generally available to
      existing Enterprise and Unlimited Edition subscribers for $50 per user
      per month
  --  For more information, please visit
      http://www.salesforce.com/platform/process


  About salesforce.com


Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company's portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The company's Force.com platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/) helps customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful business applications to run every part of the enterprise in the cloud. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing.

As of October 31, 2009, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 67,900 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. 

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