Nimbus Partners Builds and Runs its Business on the Force.com Cloud Computing Platform

Nimbus generates 400% ROI over three years with customized Force.com application instead of on-premise application development

SAN FRANCISCO – October 12, 2010 – Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced Nimbus Partners, a global provider of business process management software, has generated a 400 percent annual return on investment (ROI) over three years using Force.com for custom application development (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/application-development/).

Nimbus Partners helps customers drive transformational change with its own business process management application, Nimbus Control, and associated consulting services. Nimbus moved to Force.com because it needed a flexible and scalable platform to support its rapid growth. The company was experiencing extensive international growth and needed to add additional applications to help manage its business.

Success with Custom App Development in the Cloud:
Nimbus now runs the core of its business on Force.com. Nimbus built over 15 custom applications including:
• Human resources (HR) system
• Training applications
• Expenses
• Purchasing
• IT Asset Management

Benefits Nimbus has generated with Force.com include:
• Time to Value: Using the point-and-click customization capabilities of Force.com, Nimbus users with no programming experience were able to build applications in days vs. months with on premise platforms. As a result, Nimbus has tripled new custom application development per year.
• Reduced costs: Nimbus estimates that if the company had purchased an initial HR application to support their internal users, it would have cost $100,000 plus another $50,000 for servers and support as well as 20 percent of those costs for annual maintenance.
• Return on Investment: With annual cost savings exceeding $500,000 compared to annual costs of $130,000 for Force.com, Nimbus has generated ROI of 400 percent over three years. The primary benefit was the cost reduction associated with custom application development, deployment, and ongoing management.
• Easily Extends to iPhone: Nimbus was able to easily extends its onsite installation custom apps to the iPhone with Force.com, enabling technical consultants to access client data

Comments on the News:
• “At Nimbus we produce critical applications at a pace of business change. With Force.com, you can use clicks and code to keep the development of simple things simple and complex things possible,” said Lucy Mills, business excellence manager, Nimbus Partners Ltd. “And of course, all the customization work we do is automatically upgraded, removing the pain of traditional software upgrades.”
• “Moving our business to the cloud has helped us reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction in a challenging economy,” said Ian Gotts, CEO, Nimbus Partners Ltd. “With low up-front costs and rapid implementation capabilities, Force.com has been an ideal application development platform to help Nimbus manage its growth.”

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 the database, unlimited real-time customization, powerful analytics, real-time workflow and approvals, programmable cloud logic, integration, real-time mobile deployment, programmable user interface and Web site capabilities.
• Customers and partners have built more than 170,000 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 5 times faster , at about ½ the cost of traditional client/server software platforms. For case studies, analyst reports and white papers please visit http://www.salesforce.com/platform/tco.
• The Force.com business case calculator is now available to help estimate the time and costs of custom application development projects: http://www.salesforce.com/platform/tco/calculator.jsp?d=70130000000EfON&internal=true.

Additional Resources:
• A snapshot of the Nimbus Partners story is available here: http://www.salesforce.com/customers/hi-tech-software/nimbuspartners.jsp
• Webinar on how to get started building apps on Force.com with Lucy Mills, Nimbus.
• Here’s a video on how to get started building apps on Force.com: http://www.youtube.com/user/sfdcMktg#play/uploads/24/QkRbzd3vxHU
• Follow salesforce.com on Twitter @salesforce

Nimbus Partners is one of the approximately 82,400 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of July 31, 2010.