VMForce.com - cloud Java platform by Salesforce and VMWare
April 28, 2010 | Author: Michael Stromann
Salesforce and Google are becoming less friends but more rivals. Following the start of the cold war between ChatterExchange and Google Apps Marketplace, the companies will soon compete on the cloud platforms market. Today, Salesforce and VMWare introduced the joint product - VMForce.com - the cloud platform for Java applications, which will compete with Google App Engine. Moreover, compared to VMForce.com, GAE would look like a toy. VMForce.com (theoretically) is the ideal solution for companies using (or developing) Java-applications. On the one hand it's the Force.com's infrastructure, which provides reliable, secure and scalable hosting, database, authentication, interface builder (Visualforce), business process designer, mobile access, integrated collaboration system (Chatter). On the other hand - it's the VMWare's ecosystem for Java applications: open-source Java Springs Framework and the runtime platform vCloud.
Existing Java-applications can now be ported from the local server to Force.com without any adoption. And besides all these tools for deploying Java-apps in the cloud, the developers get access to a vast customer base of Salesforce. They can develop independent cloud applications or Java-addons for Salesforce CRM.
Until now, developers couldn't create Java-applications on Force.com. Taking into account the huge Java popularity in the enterprise, VMForce.com will become the significant advantage for the cloud market leader. Recently Salesforce also launched the similar project to integrate the development environment Adobe Flash + AIR to Force.com.
Pricing for VMforce has not been established yet, and the offering will be available for a developer preview later in the year.
See also: Top 10 Public Cloud Platforms