Virgin Galactic Launches Salesforce CRM to Deliver Astronaut Relations in the Cloud

Sales Cloud 2 selected to fire up direct sales for the Astronaut Relations program

SAN FRANCISCO, May 26, 2010 – Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that Virgin Galactic, the world’s first commercial spaceline developed by Sir Richard Branson, has deployed salesforce.com’s Sales Cloud 2 to manage the direct sales process for its Astronaut Relations program.

Virgin Galactic Looks to the Cloud
By using Salesforce CRM to manage direct sales and to track all conversations with potential customers, Virgin Galactic is providing its highly mobile Astronaut Relations team with a wealth of information at their fingertips. Potential astronauts who visit the Virgin Galactic website can easily register their interest via a simple web-form that routes their details instantly to the Virgin Galactic Astronaut Relations team as a result of the real-time cloud computing infrastructure.

Comments on the News
• “Our potential customers are located all over the world and we needed an application that would allow our Astronaut Relations team to manage such a dispersed and unique customer base,” said Dave Clark, astronaut relations, Virgin Galactic. “Salesforce.com enables us to track all our conversations with potential astronauts. This allows our direct sales team to access vital information via an Internet connection or their smart phones, anytime, anywhere.”
• “Virgin Galactic is a pioneer, and it is only fitting it chose the pioneer in enterprise cloud computing to manage all of its astronaut relations,” said Kendall Collins, chief marketing officer, salesforce.com. “Virgin Galactic’s business is very unique and the customizable nature of salesforce.com’s applications allowed the company to create the exact functionality it needed.”