Salesforce.com To Update Hosted CRM Service, Application Server

At its Dreamforce conference, the San Francisco-based company will introduce the Winter '04 release of its CRM service and sforce 2.0, the second release of its application server, executives said.

Both products include customization enhancements and new features that allow users to add functionality to their existing hosted CRM service easily and without using third-party developer tools, said Adam Gross, a director of product marketing at salesforce.com.

The Winter '04 release of the hosted service includes new custom objects and sforce controls that allow customers to extend the service's existing database to build custom applications, screens and forms through the service itself, Gross said.

The updated service also allows for seamless integration with existing enterprise applications and desktop apps such as Microsoft Word and Excel.

Sforce 2.0 enables developers to create new tables and objects representing business processes directly in the salesforce.com service, Gross said.

Salesforce.com also has rearchitected sforce's Web services API so companies can provide a customized view of their business processes to partners over the Internet, he said. The new API supports XML-based Web services standards SOAP and WSDL.

While salesforce.com initially plans for sforce to be used to extend its hosted CRM service, Gross said eventually the application server can be used as a stand-alone developer platform for building other services as well.

Among partners currently providing APIs in their software to help users extend sforce and the salesforce.com hosted service are Borland, BEA Systems and Microsoft.