Salesforce.com, the enterprise cloud computing company, launched five new enterprise cloud platform services, including Appforce, Siteforce, VMforce, ISVforce and Heroku, for building Cloud 2 apps.

Hardware and software complexity is eliminated by Force.com 2, which also gives business, IT and ISVs the means to accelerate every application development project on their backlog. 

Force.com 2: The Cloud 2 Platform

By eliminating the complexity of managing and maintaining software and hardware infrastructure, Force.com dramatically speeds up the application development process. The availability of new Force.com 2 enterprise cloud platform services, including Appforce, Siteforce, VMforce, Heroku and ISVforce, has brought about solutions that are capable of accelerating every application development project on the IT backlog:

Appforce – quickly and easily deliver collaborative departmental apps

The companies, through Appforce are allowed to deliver powerful and scalable departmental apps. Users can build forms, customize reports, visually design business processes and make sure they are all measureable and auditable. At the same time, they are also able to automatically add collaboration with Salesforce Chatter. More than 185,000 apps on Appforce have been built by leading enterprises, including Avon, Japan Post and Thomson Reuters (News - Alert).

Siteforce – revolutionary way to build pixel perfect websites without code

Building websites is no easy task today. Also, website developers find it difficult to add the social, mobile and real-time features required by enterprises today. The business users, through Siteforce are offered the tools to make simple changes and give web developers the means to deliver powerful sites quickly.

With Siteforce it is easy to draw pages, manage content and reuse pre-built components, all in real-time. And, websites built on Siteforce benefit from running on salesforce.com's trusted global infrastructure. Leading companies, including Dell (News - Alert), Starbucks and METI have built and run more than 20,000 websites on Siteforce.

VMforce – the path for 6 million Java developers to the cloud

6 million Java developers, with VMforce, salesforce.com's partnership with VMware, now have a path to the cloud. The developers, with VMforce are allowed to leverage their existing Java expertise and the benefits of cloud computing to build new enterprise apps that are cloud, mobile, social and real-time. VMforce is now in private beta at Dreamforce.

Heroku – the leading Ruby cloud application platform

The leading Ruby platform-as-a-service, Heroku takes advantage of the Ruby language. Ruby has become the leading development language used to write next-generation apps that are social, collaborative and deliver real-time access to information across mobile devices. More than 105,000 apps, written by an avid following of Ruby developers are powered by Heroku.

ISVforce – enabling ISVs to quickly build and deliver multi-tenant cloud apps

ISVs help in rapid application development and update cycle demands and a shift to the cloud development and delivery model. It offers ISVs comprehensive application development services, trials and provisioning, automatic upgrade capabilities, the AppExchange cloud app marketplace and a real-time console for monitoring customer usage and adoption.

Force.com 2 is the fast and open path to build Cloud 2 apps. The new generation of real-time enterprise applications that are social, mobile and built in the cloud is represented by Cloud 2. As per the research from several analyst firms, it has been found that building apps on Force.com is about five times faster than building on traditional on-premises platforms. It is open and easily accessible by other cloud apps and platforms, such as Amazon Web Services (News - Alert), Google App Engine and more via its powerful Web services APIs.

In related news, Salesforce.com, Inc. is all set to acquire Heroku, a cloud platform for Ruby-based web apps, for the price of $212 million.