Salesforce Issues Summer Update

Delivered as a service, the next version of Salesforce.com includes more than 100 new functions in the areas of customization, integration, globalization and collaboration. In addition, the newly public San Francisco company added a high-end version, called Enterprise Edition, to its line-up.

New features includes the ability to rename standard tab names, create custom fields, embed controls and customize layouts using drag and drop tools. A "My salesforce.com" home tab allows business administrators to create home pages for different user groups. The new Web Tabs feature can be used to embed content such as expense reports and maps in those home pages.

Intended for large organizations, the new high-end Enterprise 2.0 edition offers more advanced customization at the data model, business logic and user interface levels. It is , scheduled for general availability in September.

Summer '04 also adds a Customer Self-Service Portal for customer service and support, as well as enhanced analytics features such as an improved chart wizard for designing custom charts.

In addition, Salesforce.com said its software provided improved integration with Microsoft Outlook and Microsoft Office applications, as well as with more than 100 ISV application. One such ISV is Intacct, of Los Gatos, Calif. On Wednesday, Intacct and Salesforce said they will jointly offer a "fused" service that combines Intacct's full range of accounting applications with Salesforce's front-end software.

Among the early crop of ASPs that first populated the dot-com industry, Intacct has quietly made a name for itself by hosting accounting systems for professional accounting firms and accounting outsourcers, to other ISVs and to companies of all sizes. Intacct's base of larger organizations could be is especially important to Salesforce.

In its prospectus files with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Salesforce wrote that 40 percent of its business comes from companies with fewer than 20 employees. Salesforce described such subscribers as having "higher attrition rates and shorter subscription periods.," and said its survival depends on attracting a greater share of the midsize- and large-business market.

The combined service has melded workflows between Salesforce at the front end, and Intacct's hosted ERP applications. "Salesforce is used from the point of acquiring the prospect and placing an order, then Intacct picks up the flow for handling all of the invoicing, receivables, right through to payments, and then Salesforce picks it up again for customer support," said Intacct CEO Robert Jurkowski.

Pricing has not been announced for the combined service, slated to begin August 20.