Technology

Companies looking to solidify a robust presence on the web with a site that makes use of databases, integration with back end systems, workflow and approval rules, analytics, and more can now do it all on the cloud with Force.com Sites, a new offering from SAAS powerhouse Salesforce.com. And by the way, it’s free. Or free up until a certain point.

They call it “user interface in the cloud,” and the idea sounds so simple and obvious it’s crazy it hasn’t been done until now. If the cloud is a perfect place for building and deploying apps, why not build the front end there as well? For no matter how great your app is, nobody’s going to use it—including your own internal users—if the experience of using it is painful. Since many UX pain points come at the intersection of front end and back end technology, it makes sense to develop a UI in an environment where both technologies are native.

Sites uses a point-and-click interface to set up databases, build out workflow rules, and handle email alerts and approvals. All coding happens on Salesforce’s “Visualforce” user interface framework, using standard web technologies.

According to Salesforce.com, with Sites, companies can build and deploy websites five times faster than via traditional software platforms—at half the cost. Some big names in commerce are already true believers. In three weeks Starbucks built Pledge5, a volunteering website featuring pages served up from Salesforce.com. After being featured on Oprah, the site already has had over one million page views. Dell also used Sites to build a website for promoting social causes, and from idea to deployment, Dell’s site took just four weeks.

With Sites, claims Salesforce.com, companies don’t have to worry about hardware, software stack, backups, performance tuning, security, or upgrades. You can explore Sites now for free, and continue using it for free as long as your site falls below certain thresholds.

By Robert Pothier