Companies are beginning to understand that cloud computing can be more secure than on-premises software because of the stringent security measures cloud-based companies like Salesforce.com (News - Alert) have put into place, Scott Holden, senior director for product marketing at Salesforce.com, was quoted as saying in CRM Buyer.

Salesforce.com is the dominant player in the cloud-based CRM market. In fact, "Salesforce is the poster child for innovation in CRM," Ray Wang, principal analyst of Constellation Research Group, was quoted as saying. Scott Holden couldn’t agree more, "We're the clear leader in the space,” he said.

Indeed, Salesforce.com brings multiple sales force automation and cloud-based services to the market. In the CRM Buyer interview, Holden said Salesforce.com started by utilizing metrics based on customer surveys and using that information to create a tool that sales teams could use to manage accounts and contacts, provide visibility to managers, and perform all the basic functions very easily.”

Salesforce CRM customers can receive real-time updates on important business contact and company data, at any time, from anywhere with Salesforce “Chatter.” After deciding to revamp its user interface, Salesforce.com created “Chatter,” a collaborative application based on social media that incorporates a feed rather than tabs, resulting in a more customized user experience that allows customers to choose which people and deals they track. According to David Taber in CIO, “Chatter applies social networking metaphors to the problem of collaboration. It has the immediacy and feel of a Facebook (News - Alert), but is organized around customers, opportunities, and solutions rather than ‘users.’ When somebody at your company updates a relevant document or record in the system (such as a contract or a case), the people who are following (read: are subscribed to) that item are given immediate updates. The moment a problem has been solved, people with interest in related cases are notified. Chatter feeds can automatically generate notifications based on changes in up to 20 fields per object — so notifications can get pretty detailed.”

In September 2010, Salesforce.com also brought to market Jigsaw for Salesforce CRM, an entirely new crowd-sourced business data service exclusive to Salesforce CRM customers. Built leveraging native Salesforce.com technologies, Jigsaw provides a seamless integration, a new user interface, robust analytics and delivers real-time updates to contact and company information within Salesforce CRM through Salesforce Chatter. Salesforce.com says Jigsaw is the world’s largest crowd-sourced database with more than 22 million business contacts and 4 million company profiles that are continually updated and added to by a global, Wikipedia-style community of more than 1.4 million individuals. Since the data is crowd sourced, users realize greater accuracy, which is available to end users in real-time and pre-integrated to other cloud apps.

Salesforce.com also addresses the mobile market. Salesforce.com’s mobile capabilities are designed to make it easy to build and deploy customized mobile applications. Administrators of all skill levels can create complex mobile applications with point-and-click that work across BlackBerry, iPhone (News - Alert), Windows Mobile, and other popular mobile devices. Recognizing that wireless coverage may not always be available, Salesforce.com’s Force.com can help ensure field productivity by providing seamless, offline mobile access to key Salesforce data.

"In this economy, companies need more innovative sales and marketing strategies and better business data," said Denis Pombriant, managing principal, Beagle Research Group. We're likely to see more companies turning to data in the cloud to support their dynamic operations."

In other news, TMCnet reported sales management consultancy firm Doble Group, LLC, has partnered with cloud computing service provider Salesforce.com, saying it would promote adoption of cloud computing in the Caribbean and Central America regions.