Analysis: Salesforce.com Sites Slices Cloud in New Ways
Salesforce.com announced the availability of Sites today, a service that allows businesses to host their websites using the SaaS company's datacenters. Sites will also let companies use Force.com Web apps or offer them to customers.
One example the company showed off was how the New Jersey Transit has used the service. The transit uses an alert system to track delays and incidents that occur on its lines. Now, when transit workers internally post an alert to the system, provided it goes through the proper workflow and approval, the alert gets posted to the company's website for riders to see.
Salesforce will use page views as a measure to monetize the service. A Group Edition Salesforce subscription includes up to 50,000 monthly page views for a Force.com Site. An Unlimited Edition subscription comes with 1 million monthly views.
If more page views are required, the services charges $1,000 per month for up to 1 million more monthly views, or $3,000 a month for up to 5 million additional views per month.
"This is a whole new way to think about your website," Benioff says, making his pitch to the nearly 10,000 conference attendees, to a packed standing room only keynote hall. "It's all point and click. All your web apps can run on Force.com sites."
