In an effort to take advantage of the promised potential for successful professional social networking this year, Salesforce is adding a DaaS platform, a new pricing model to its Platform-as-a-Service tool, Force.com. You may recall that Force.com’s platform is a tool that businesses can use for internal use (think in-house social networking for employees, teams, etc.), and as an interface for a company’s online interaction with its clients.

New Customers

So with hopes to appeal to a larger client base, Salesforce has included a pay-per-login option that adds a $5/login, with up to 5 logins per month. The $50/month/user is still available as an option, but even the new payment option seems a bit steep to me. And with several other facilities looking to move in this space, including KickApps, Cisco and more recently LongJump, Salesforce is looking to reel in some new customers with a promotional price for the rest of the year. This promo will drop the $5 per login plan down t 99 cents per login.

New Developers

New customers isn’t the only goal for Salesforce in 2008. The company is also launching a $1 million developer challenge as part of its “Tour De Force” roadshow. This will encourage more developers to work on the Force.com platform, and grant Salesforce the ability to show the applications as highlights and models for customers in the future as well. As noted in CenterNetworks, the $1 million prize is actually in the form of an investment, and the application must be built entirely on the Force.com platform.

Share This

Popularity: 4% [?]