"The sforce 2.0 API represents one of the most innovative and important applications of open Web service standards to date," said Adam Bosworth, chief architect and senior vice president of advanced development, BEA Systems. "Combined with the innovations in dynamic WSDL generation and querying, this Web service represents what is possible when complexity and risk can be removed from integration. The simplicity of this new API, and the software-as-service platform model, can make enterprise-class CRM integration a reality for everyone."

"We need a system that is extensible to our unique business requirements," said Ron Hess, CRM program manager, Neoforma, Inc. "With sforce's new custom objects and sforce controls, we're able to avoid the constraints traditionally associated with on demand solutions -- and build and deploy applications in a fraction of the time and effort as compared to traditional enterprise software."

"With sforce 2.0, enterprises can leverage the benefits of an on-demand application server to create custom solutions tailored to their specific business requirements," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "By making the promise of Web services a reality, sforce and on-demand application development has trumped traditional enterprise software in the ability to create, host and execute client/service applications without compromise."

New sforce 2.0 features include:

• sforce controls that allow developers to use popular development environments to create and extend user interfaces with active custom content and new forms.
• Custom objects, which can be customized to match specific business needs.
• The sforce 2.0 Web services API features the introduction of a new SOAP/WDSL-based API that makes an enterprise's full data and business process model available within all modern development environments.
• The sforce Object Query Language introduced in sforce 2.0 simplifies the querying of objects through the API, via a familiar SQL-like syntax.
• Workflow controls that can be developed to trigger business rules and automate processes, create escalation and routing rules, and automate responses for handling online inquiries from multiple sources.