Salesforce.com Winter '08 edition goes live

Salesforce Winter ’08 edition of the Force.com platform is now live, as well as two new applications-- Salesforce Content and Salesforce Ideas (previously covered here when the software was rolled out at Dreamforce 07).

As usual, salesforce.com is not shy about jabbing at rivals. "Competitors seem stagnant and petrified of development, said Kendall Collins, vice president of product marketing at salesforce.com. He is referring to Microsoft, Oracle and SAP, which have been slow to adopt the software-as-a-service model. Indeed, salesforce.com has out-hustled and developed the competition so far with its pace of innovation. The company is also comparing itself to Google and Facebook, touting openness, communities and Web services, but differentiation from the consumer services with enterprise-ready applications.

In addition, the developer preview edition of VisualForce, which allows developers to create applications with any kind of interface or device using the Force.com platform, Apex code and other tools, is now open to all customers. Nearly 3,000 developers signed up for the preview edition and 3,700 new custom interfaces have been created in the six weeks since it was first introduced at Dreamforce '07, Collins said. VisualForce will not be generally available for commercial applications until sometime next year.