Cloud Computing's instant time to value and infrastructure independence is winning over even the most sceptical members of the IT sector, with concerns about getting the security, customisation, and integration capabilities required for a successful implementation. Cloud computing platforms, also known as platform-as-a-service (PaaS), are making heroes out of IT departments by eliminating maintenance tasks and allowing business users to perform basic customisation tasks, and thus freeing up IT to focus their minds on innovation and contributing to the value of their businesses. The future of software truly does begin with cloud computing.

The Cloud Computing Platform

Cloud computing platforms and the Force.com platform-as–a-service, in particular, offer many advantages compared to the traditional on-premise model.

• Time to value using cloud computing is unprecedented. The Salesforce.com cloud computing platform, Force.com, minimises the risk involved in implementing enterprise applications like CRM by eliminating the expense of up-front capital investment, meaning CRM success is within easy reach. Salesforce implementations usually take under a month and rarely take longer than 3 months, compared to one year or longer to implement traditional client/server software. According to a recent study by Triple Tree and the Software and Information Industry Association (SIIA), platform as a service deployment times are 50 to 90 percent shorter, with a total cost of ownership five to ten times lower than that of traditional software implementations.
• Platform as a service is less expensive at the start... and in the long run. It's easy to see why a multitenant, cloud computing solution requires less expenditure at the outset. You don't need to worry about purchasing hardware, or software. There no operating systems, database servers, or application servers to install and maintain, no need for consultants and staff to manage it all, or any overhead in managing upgrades. The even more impressive aspect, however, is the savings made in the long-term. Gartner estimates that two thirds of IT time and budgets are spent on maintaining infrastructure and wasting effort on updates. Not so with a cloud computing platform. A cloud computing platform also has fewer hidden costs. A complete, five-year total cost of ownership (TCO) study for a 50-seat project factored in several, often hidden cost factors, ranging from needs analyses to the expense of internal downtime. This study showed the TCO of a premise-based solution in reality to be 2.5 times higher than a cloud computing solution.
• Easily deal with upgrades with cloud computing. Customers running applications on cloud computing platforms experience the benefits from the split second deployment of new versions to all users, which means that no one is using an out-of-date version. Since customisations and integrations are maintained through application upgrades, change management discussions will be focused on taking direct advantage of the new features and innovations available with every new release.
• Platform-as-a-service promises better service delivery. Due to the cloud computing application model's tremendous economies of scale and the ever-present focus on high-quality service delivery from salesforce.com, the Force.com platform can deliver higher service levels than most companies can achieve without outside assistance. We use the finest technologies, policies, and procedures giving assurance of security at the facilities, application, and network levels; to ensure maximum uptime and continuous availability; and to provide a service performance record that sets the standard in the cloud computing industry. See for yourself at http://trust.salesforce.com.
• Cloud computing scales with your business. Successful companies deal with constant changes and growth: adding to the workforce, processing more orders, launching new products and services, and completing mergers and acquisitions. Traditional enterprise software has proven to be expensive to scale because of the complexity and cost of scaling each facet of the hardware and software stacks, which usually require awkward system replacements and data migrations. Customer-specific systems developed with J2EE, .NET, or open source tools are also difficult to scale because of issues with infrastructure and changing or unpredicted business requirements. The Force.com platform grows, scales, and adapts with your changing business needs.
• Cloud Computing Platforms enable simplified customisation. Users of on-premise applications aren't given a choice about waiting weeks or months for small modifications. The Force.com platform as a service was developed so that performing basic customisations to the user interface and underlying data objects would be easy. Thanks to its point-and-click customisation tools, even business users can customise the platform in as little time as a few minutes, without complex programming. Without the burden of executing constant requests for minor customisations, IT is now free to concentrate on performing more sophisticated customisations, such as associating specific behaviours with objects that to be triggered by a wide range of system events.
• Administration is easy with Cloud Computing. With the Force.com platform as a service and Salesforce CRM software as a service, administrators can modify processes and define how data is seen within different teams and work groups, while ensuring that users can only access the information for which they are authorised.
• Cloud Computing encourages innovation. By eliminating many of the issues related to traditional application development, the cloud computing model frees developers to focus on working on solutions which deliver true business value. Salesforce.com supports developers with a range of tools and resources—including a point-and-click customisation tool, toolkits for the most in-demand development environments, and the Force.com programming language—Apex Code—as well as developer.force.com – our developer community. There's has been rapid growth to the Force.com community, resulting in literally hundreds of innovative platform-as-a-service solutions which have been made available to customers via the Force.com AppExchange directory, salesforce.com's popular marketplace for pre-integrated, software-as-a-service applications.

The Original Platform as a Service: Force.com

The platform as a service from salesforce.com, Force.com, is not just the background technology which powers Salesforce CRM applications; it is the fastest way of building and deploying other enterprise applications and CRM systems. Development times have been reduced from months to just days or weeks, thanks to the cloud computing platform model. Different to a stack of separately designed hardware and software products, Force.com speeds innovation through a powerful but incredibly user-friendly cloud computing development model. Build applications just with simple clicks, components and code, then instantly deploy them to salesforce.com's platform as a service.

"Today we spend 63 percent of our time and budget on servers and just to keep the lights on—that is pure cost, no business value. With Force.com, we can outsource the infrastructure and focus on creating innovation and real business value." — CIO of Fortune 1000 company

• Developers and IT departments love the Force.com Platform as a Service. Force.com means freedom from infrastructure maintenance, upgrades, and scaling, which leaves more time to focus on innovation, core development work and creating true business value.
• ISVs love the Force.com Platform as a Service, too. Salesforce.com offers not only the platform as a service, but also a marketing and distribution channel via the Force.com AppExchange marketplace. The AppExchange puts the products that ISVs develop on the Force.com cloud computing platform in front of a highly qualified set of business customers who are seeking cloud computing solutions.