Salesforce Unveils Info-sharing Platform Picked By Dell

By Jennifer Lawinski, CRN
December 05, 2007 4:54 PM ET

At an event held simultaneously in San Francisco and in New York City celebrating its 1 millionth user on Wednesday, Salesforce.com introduced its Salesforce to Salesforce platform and outlined the ways in which PC maker Dell will use it to manage its reseller relationships in its new partner program.

Salesforce to Salesforce allows companies to share information between themselves much like Facebook allows users to selectively share multi-tired information, said George Hu, executive vice president, products and marketing for Salesforce.com.

Vendors and resellers, or any two players in a business-to-business relationship, can selectively choose which information to share between themselves once they've connected as Salesforce to Salesforce partners. The system can allow users to publish and push data out to partners or to subscribe to information disseminated by others.

At the event in New York City, Hu demonstrated how a Dell partner might pass a lead through the system and how both Dell and the partner would have access to and be able to manipulate the shared information. Information sharing also works between custom applications designed on the Salesforce platform beyond ERP. "We think this is really going to change the way people feel about Salesforce.com," Hu said.

Dell launched its channel program on Wednesday, and Salesforce.com's platform "is a big part of that," Chris Bates, director of reseller programs for Dell, Round Rock, Tex., said to the audience in New York. Dell has built its partner portal on the Salesforce to Salesforce platform.

"We see that as a big differentiator for Dell Partner Direct," Bates said.

The Salesforce.com Foundation also gave out $1 million in donations to 10 nonprofit organizations including: Acumen Fund, The Bridge School, Endeavor, Room to Read, San Francisco Connect, TransFair USA, micro-lending organization Kiva.org, San Francisco General Hospital, Tibet House, and the Bronx Lab School.

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