The leading provider of on-demand, cloud based CRM solutions, Salesforce.com recently announced that its services have received U.S. General Services Administration (GSA (News - Alert)) moderate level Authority to Operate. The certification is based on testing performed against the NIST 800-53 Rev. 3 moderate baseline requirements consistent with FISMA requirements, the company clarified in a press release. With this, Salsforce.com hopes to bring the same customer success to the public sector that it has been delivering to the private sector for the last 12 years.
Salesforce.com (News - Alert) has received the Authority to Operate at the moderate level baseline for the Force.com platform, Salesforce CRM, Salesforce Chatter, and supporting infrastructure. The certification implies that government customers will now be able to leverage salesforce.com's cloud computing services to address even more of their IT needs, all without any hardware or software.
Driven by the Obama Administration's Cloud First policy, hundreds of government organizations, including more than half of U.S. federal cabinet-level departments, have already deployed salesforce.com's services, reportedly to deliver a broad range of services including the management of grants, electronic medical records, constituent-facing websites and contact centers. State and local government agencies, like New Jersey Transit, Arlington Economic Development and Chicago Housing Authority, have also seen tremendous success with salesforce.com, the company officials maintained in the release.
“The benefits the U.S. government stands to gain from secure enterprise public clouds are enormous. The Commission on the Leadership Opportunity in U.S. Deployment of the Cloud (CLOUD2) will help advance cloud computing in the public sector,” the company’s U.S. Chief Information Officer said Vivek Kundra noted in a statement.
In the end of May, Salesforce.com announced that it will grant equity awards under its 2006 Inducement Equity Incentive Plan to new employees who joined salesforce.com in connection with its previously announced acquisition of Radian6 Technologies.
Madhubanti Rudra is a contributing editor for TMCnet. To read more of her articles, please visit her columnist page.Edited by Rich Steeves