14 DAY TRIAL // Remember that piece of news saying IBM was expanding its Mac Pilot Program? It sure looks like more companies are drawn into what the Mac can offer, at least from a security point of view. Salesforce plans to employ 4,000 Macs for its entire staff, a piece on 9to5mac reveals, making it one of the largest enterprise software companies to use Macs.
"The opportunity to use the innovative iPhone OS platform to deliver compelling Software-as-a-Service applications to mobile users is empowering to us, and ultimately, our customers," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO of Salesforce. "They are asking us for new ways to harness the power of Force.com to access their business information on any device regardless of location."
You must be wondering why. Why would Salesforce all of the sudden want to switch to Mac? Surely, Mac fanatics already have the answer to this question, but indulge us by reading iPhone developer Alex Curylo's blog entry, highlighted by the aforementioned source: "Why, you ask, Security! The resources it takes to defend against all the stuff the baddies throw at a PC, it's just cheaper/easier to pay a few bucks more for a Mac and not have any of those issues."
Salesforce is an on-demand Customer Relationship Management (CRM) solution vendor. The company is also referred to as SFDC. Salesforce was founded in 1999 by former Oracle executive Marc Benioff. In June 2004, the company went public on the New York Stock Exchange. Initial investors in Salesforce were Marc Benioff, Larry Ellison, Halsey Minor, Magdelana Yelsil and Igor Siller.
Salesforce is headquartered in San Francisco, California, with regional headquarters in Dublin (covering Europe, Middle East, and Africa), Singapore (covering Asia Pacific, except for Japan), and Tokyo (covering Japan). Other major offices are in Toronto, New York, London, Sydney, and San Mateo, California, Wikipedia says. Salesforce has its services translated into 14 different languages and currently has 38,100 customers and over 900,000 subscribers.