Dreamforce 2012: Heroku for Enterprise makes Java app cloud development easier

Salesforce.com this week answered the call of businesses looking to build and run Java-based applications in the cloud quickly and easily.

It took the wraps of Heroku for Enterprise at this week's Dreamforce conference in San Francisco, unveiling a developer PaaS toolset that will enable some mission-critical apps to be created in minutes rather than months reducing development time and resource and allowing surplus effort to be redirected and add value elsewhere.

The announcement comes a year after Heroku a salesforce.com company since its acquisition at the end of 2010 first supported Java for smaller operations. Developers can opt for version 6, 7, or the soon-to-be available OpenJDK 8 Java environment. Support-wise, it'll cost businesses $1,000 per month, per application.

"There are over two million apps on the Heroku platform. Just yesterday, Macy's introduced a social shopping app," said George Hu, salesforce.com's chief operating officer. "Now we have Heroku

Enterprise for java. We are so excited about the level of innovation this is going to unlock in your enterprise."

Building on the developer-friendly theme, the company also announced a new Heroku plug-in that makes use of collaboration software specialist Atlassian's Bamboo integration service. This removes key development headaches buy automating application lifecycle processes testing, code control, staging and production.

"Enterprise developers have been looking for a better way to easily create innovative applications without the hassle of building out a back-end infrastructure," said Oren Teich, COO of Heroku.

"With Heroku Enterprise for Java, developers get all the benefits of developing in Java along with the ease of using an open, cloud platform in a single click."

Heroku ramped up its corporate focus at last year's Dreamforce event by launching new enterprise packages with a $4,000 per month price tag.