Adobe Partners with Salesforce.Com on Cloud Computing

Salesforce.com is now integrating Adobe Flash technology with its Force.com platform in an effort to keep ahead of Microsoft in the race for cloud-based application development.

Beginning early next year, developers will be able to use the combined Adobe/Salesforce technology to create applications that run online or offline across operating systems and devices, and that give customers the ability to synchronize and manage data locally while continuing to run applications in the cloud.

Developers can use Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com to extend or enhance existing Salesforce CRM implementations and custom-built Force.com applications, or build entirely new applications to provide customized user experiences for any business need.

Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com is a jointly developed integrated development environment (IDE) that allows developers to create applications that can be run both through browsers and on desktop clients.

Adobe Flash Builder for Force.com includes:

• Professional Eclipse-based IDE, unifying Adobe Flash Builder and the Force.com IDE into a common environment for building Force.com applications.
• Code-editor, design-view, browser and cross-platform compatibility.
• User interface capabilities with more than 100 reusable components, including access to motion graphics and drag-and-drop capabilities.
• Data visualizations, including built-in interactive charting and animation components capable of processing large data sets.
• Pre-built integration with Adobe LiveCycle Data Services for client-side data management and synchronization services, automatically synchronizing data between the Force.com database and an Adobe AIR secure local data store on the client, allowing developers to build apps that seamlessly span connected and disconnected environments.

Adobe's Flash Player and AIR runtime are competing with Microsoft's Silverlight in this domain, while Salesforce will get strong competition from Microsoft's Azure platform.

Ariel Kelman, vice president of platform product marketing for Salesforce.com, said that the combination of the "Adobe Flash Platform and Force.com will enable the creation of exciting new kinds of business applications that run in the cloud."

A developer preview is available now on Salesforce.com's developer site, but the vendor doesn't expect to deliver a final product until the first half of 2010.