iPhone to revolutionise mobile apps

Salesforce.com, who specialises in Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications, has made its entire line of Salesforce CRM business applications and any of its 72,000 custom or third party application built natively on the Force.com Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) available for the iPhone.

Chuck Dietrich, vice president of Salesforce Mobile, believes that the iPhone’s user-friendly interface and adaptabilty makes it an ideal carrier for mobile applications.

“The thing about the iPhone is that it brings a touch base interface, which opens up a lot of opportunities to make these applications more adaptable,” said Dietrich. “iPhone has set the pace for what that interface would be, so we can have our applications emulate that form factor.”

“Our customers use the applications we make, and they re-customise and build their own. The iPhone client respects whatever you build online, and it opens up the possibility to build entire suites of customised applications.”

The iPhone Application store, which Salesforce CRM will be available through, also adds another level of ease for customers in downloading and updating their mobile applications.

“The Apps store is very compelling because we can build new versions and clients will get notified automatically,” said Dietrich.

“This makes it so we can add new features and functionality and the distribution is great and easy to use.”

While previous converged devices have made mobile applications a vital addition to many businesses, Dietrich says the impact iPhone will bring to the enterprise market with mobile apps will be major.

“A lot of devices like the Blackberry have made huge innovations in this space, and the iPhone is just another great revolution in that process. It offers a whole other realm of possibilities for what can be done with mobile apps,” he said.