Salesforce.com has made it easier for businesses to satisfy users' ever-increasing cravings to use the latest and greatest devices at work by unveiling a new developer platform.
Launched at the company's Dreamforce event in San Francisco this week, the Touch Platform allows developers to write a custom mobile app once that can be used across a multitude of devices regardless of the underlying operating system.
It essentially turns any developer into a mobile developer, according to the company.
"The future of enterprise is mobile. These employees are going to demand applications," said George Hu, salesforce.com's COO during the opening keynote at the company's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.
"With the Salesforce Touch platform you can take the investment you've made and all those skills on the salesforce platform and instantly push them to devices."
The platform supports HTML 5, hybrid and native app development enabling deployment across any type of device including Android and iOS-based form factors. It will allow development of mobile apps to catch up with the fast pace of new device releases, according to the company.
In addition to the underlying developer platform and toolset, salesforce.com announced Touch, which makes the power of its app and data available wherever employees are, and from any device.
The proliferation of tablets in the enterprise is expected to grow by almost 50 per cent each year between now and 2016, according to Infinite Research. In response, salesforce.com will make Touch available for devices such as the Amazon Kindle, iPhone, iPad as well as Android OS-based devices
"Sales is now social. That's why our sales app is number one in the world. It's number one in market share and has been number one in Gartner's quadrant for five years running. But the most important thing is you as users are seeing results an average increase of 27 per cent in sales. And that's what counts," Hilarie Koplow-McAdams, president of salesforce.com's commercial/SMB business unit.
"You also asked us for something bigger. Why can't I take salesforce on the road with me? I am thrilled to announce now you can with Salesforce Touch. It's the first fully mobile sales application in the world. You can run salesforce.com on any device that you want. The choice is yours."
