Salesforce.com Goes Offline and Big Biz

Salesforce.com, a provider of online customer relationship management (CRM) software, announced today that it plans to offer new offline and enterprise versions of its popular sales force automation product. The new products will be called salesforce.com Offline Edition and Enterprise Editions, respectively. The current online product will be renamed Professional Edition and will be marketed to small and mid-size companies.

The San Francisco-based company plans to preview the new product offerings at the DEMO 2002 conference, which is being held this week in Phoenix. The company reports that it will also highlight its Marketing Automation and XML Web services integration functionality as well as offer an advanced look at its E-Business Suite, which is scheduled to launch in the fourth quarter.

The Offline Edition and Enterprise Edition, according to salesforce.com, will offer all the benefits of its online CRM software with the integration, customization and tiered administration capabilities required by enterprise-class customers. The new versions will also offer the capability to view and update customer and prospect information offline.

“Unveiling our products at the DEMO conference has become something of a tradition for the company and this year promises to be the best yet,” said Marc Benioff, president and CEO of salesforce.com. “The new way of delivering enterprise-class applications is upon us.”

This marks the third consecutive year that salesforce.com will be a featured presenter at the DEMO conference — an honor shared only by industry leaders Microsoft and Palm. At DEMO 2000, salesforce.com launched its original online sales force automation. A year later, it rolled its online CRM solution at the conference.

Offline Edition and Enterprise Edition will be officially launched on February 22 in New York City.

Salesforce.com currently claims to have more than 3,600 customers, including Adobe Systems, Autodesk, Fujitsu, Siemens and USA Today.

ASPnews lists salesforce.com as a Top 20 ASP.

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