Custom applications for customer inquiries, arbitrations, collections, and more, all built using Force.com and created to meet OPENLANE's growth trajectory and specific business needs SAN FRANCISCO, Sept. 17 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM), the enterprise cloud computing company, today announced that OPENLANE, Inc., an industry leading online auction company for automotive dealers to buy and sell wholesale vehicles, is greatly improving its business success with the use of Force.com. OPENLANE leveraged the Force.com enterprise cloud computing platform to integrate different enterprise systems to easily share dealer information across internal groups, and also developed multiple custom applications to support its rapidly growing business. Building on Force.com enabled OPENLANE to complete its custom development faster than it would have required with on-premise development. (Logo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO) "As we built our company, we originally utilized on premise enterprise software and systems that weren't ideally suited for our business," said Andrew Iorgulescu, Vice President of Business and Dealer Development at OPENLANE. "As the company grew, we sought out the flexibility of a cloud computing solution and began to utilize Salesforce CRM to manage and enhance our relationships with dealers. After implementing functionality to manage dealer relationships, we began to add other processes in order to drive customer intimacy to higher levels. Designing and building custom applications on the Force.com platform had significant appeal when we realized it could be done more quickly and at significantly less cost than we expected. The results are greater levels of responsiveness and service for our rapidly growing dealer base." Today, OPENLANE has custom solutions for dealer sales, customer inquiries, vehicle arbitrations, collections, and more -- all built using Force.com and created to meet the company's specific business needs. Further, both Salesforce CRM (http://www.salesforce.com/) and the custom applications were fully integrated with the industry leading OPENLANE auction platforms, SAP financials and other legacy database systems. "Salesforce CRM and Force.com have been integral in helping us to optimize our business, and we've even added some applications from the AppExchange and a Customer Portal to gain additional benefits," commented Iorgulescu. "We now have a solution that integrates multiple customer touch points across several systems into one efficient platform. This solution allows our internal development teams to focus their efforts on enhancing OPENLANE's unique auction platforms while delivering a better experience for our dealer customers." Force.com - the Industry's Leading Enterprise Cloud Computing Platform: -- Force.com is salesforce.com's enterprise cloud computing platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/cloud-platform/) -- Force.com provides everything companies need to quickly build and deliver business applications in the cloud, including the database, unlimited real-time customization, powerful analytics, real-time workflow and approvals, programmable cloud logic, integration, real-time mobile deployment, programmable user interface and Web site capabilities -- Customers and partners have built more than 120,000 custom applications on Force.com to run their businesses, including, supply chain management, compliance tracking, brand management, accounts receivable, claims processing, time-off applications and much more -- Force.com enables companies to build and deliver applications 5 times faster, at about the cost of traditional client/server software platforms: http://www.salesforce.com/platform/tco/ -- Here's a video on how to get started building apps on Force.com: http://www.youtube.com/user/sfdcMktg#play/uploads/24/QkRbzd3vxHU OPENLANE is one of the 63,200 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of July 31, 2009. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the service is delivered. About OPENLANE OPENLANE, Inc. is a leading online auction company in North America for automotive dealers to buy and sell wholesale vehicles. The company offers end-to-end auto remarketing solutions to auto manufacturers, captive finance companies, lease and daily rental companies, financial institutions and wholesale auto auctions throughout the United States and Canada. OPENLANE powers online remarketing programs for American Honda Finance, Audi Financial Services, Avis Budget Group, Chase Auto Finance, Chrysler Financial, Porsche Financial Services, Volkswagen Credit, among others. For more information, please visit http://www.openlane.com/ or call +1 (866) 969-0321. About Salesforce.com Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company. The company's portfolio of Salesforce CRM applications, available at http://www.salesforce.com/products/, has revolutionized the ways that companies collaborate and communicate with their customers across sales, marketing and service. The company's Force.com platform (http://www.salesforce.com/platform/) helps customers, partners and developers to quickly build powerful business applications to run every part of the enterprise in the cloud. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, Salesforce CRM and Force.com offer the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing. As of July 31, 2009, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 62,300 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Dow Jones Newswires, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM". For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com/, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE. Copyright (c) 2009 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners. http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO http://photoarchive.ap.org/ DATASOURCE: salesforce.com CONTACT: Gordon Evans of salesforce.com, +1-415-536-7608, Web Site: http://www.salesforce.com/ http://www.openlane.com/

Copyright