What is Force.com?

Computing power in the cloud.

Building and running business applications with traditional software has always been too complex, slow and expensive. A new model, called Cloud Computing, has emerged over the last decade to address this problem. Applications that run in the Cloud are delivered as a service so companies no longer have to buy and maintain hardware and software to run them. 

The Force.com Platform is the fastest platform for building enterprise applications. What used to take months can now be done in days or weeks. Unlike a stack of separately designed and developed hardware and software products, Force Platform unifies the development and deployment model from the database to the device through a powerful yet easy-to-use programming model. Force Platform is the most proven platform for building enterprise applications that run in the Cloud. It currently runs all of the Salesforce CRM apps, over 800 ISV apps like those from Thompson, Fujitsu and CODA and over 70,000 custom apps used by over 47,400 customers such as Dell, Cisco and Symantec.

Force.com includes the following benefits and out-of-the-box capabilities:

• World-class Systems Infrastructure - Powers over 150 millions transactions per day. SAS70 Type 2, SysTrust, and ISO 27001 compliant.
• No Hardware or Software to Run - Start real app development from day 1 - no systems to setup or integrate
• No Maintenance Required - No more patches, no more tuning. Get security, reliability and scalability - without the overhead.
• Pre-built components mean no extra development - Full Reporting&Analytics, powerful workflow engine, internationalization - multi-currency/multi-language, robust authentication & security model, mobile device support (Blackberry, iPhone, etc.), compliance audit trail, Web services integrations.
• Multi-tenant Architecture - All customers run on the same code - no more versioning headaches. Protect your IP through robust packaging technologies.
• Instant deployment - Scale from 1 to XXX,000s of users. Move quickly from development to testing to production.