San Francisco-based Salesforce.com has announced the release of Salesforce1, a new platform introducing social media aspects to its customer relationship management (CRM) software.
Taking a year to make and several revamps, Salesforce1 can easily be made to work on any device from desktops to smartphones. This also includes integration with services Dropbox, Evernote, Kenandy and Linkedin.
"Welcome to the Internet of Customers-where every company can connect every app, employee, partner, product and device with their customer using the power of social, mobile and cloud," read Saleforce's press release.
Built API-first to enable developers to build the next generation of connected apps, Salesforce1 allows app creation that's more personalized and quicker than previous iterations. Through the Salesforce1 Mobile App built into Salesforce1 Customer Platform, end users can literally experience the software anywhere. The app is available in Apple App Store as well as Google Play Store.
Sales reps can now deliver service everywhere to solve cases faster and leverage the more than 2,000 available apps on AppExchange. Admins can be empowered to instantly make all their existing Salesforce apps future proof and offer customers 1:1 engagements at scale through custom automated marketing campaigns.
News comes as the biggest maker of customer-management software forecast fiscal fourth-quarter revenue beyond analysts' expectations, according to reports.
Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff spent more than $3 billion to purchase marketing software companies including ExactTarget Inc., helping expand the company's reach and bolster shares upwards of 27 percent since its prior earnings report in August.
"Salesforce1 is not a new version of Salesforce, it is a new vision for the industry," said Benioff. "I don't use a laptop anymore. I don't even use an iPad. I just use this iPhone 5 and I run the company from that."
Recently, Salesforce also announced a partnership with Hewlett-Packard Co. This allows customers to buy additional computing power for their software using HP's gear while running inside Salesforce's data centers.
