Leading software-as-a-service (SaaS) player Salesforce.com has set up its first international data centre in Singapore to accelerate international expansion and the adoption of enterprise cloud computing in the Asia Pacific.
Along with its two North American data centres, the new Singapore facility allows the company to meet the service demands of its rapidly growing international customer base as well as extend the capacity, redundancy and scalability of its infrastructure.
Supporting the data centre infrastructure will be a new Network Operations Centre (NOC) headquartered in Singapore. The NOC enables 24x7, follow-the-sun monitoring of the company’s data centres in North America and Singapore.
“Asia Pacific is our fastest growing market, and there has never been a better time for enterprise cloud computing,” said Mr Marc Benioff, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), salesforce.com. “Our new Singapore data centre represents continued investment in our global real-time infrastructure to accelerate customer success with cloud computing worldwide.”
At the opening of the Salesforce.com data centre: (From left) Mr Andrew Khaw of IDA; Ms Polly Sumner, President, Alliances and Services, Salesforce.com; Mr Manohar Khiatani, Assistant Managing Director, Industry Development, Singapore Economic Development Board; and Mr Steve McWhirter, President, Asia Pacific Operations, Salesforce.com. |
According to salesforce.com, the company surpassed 5,000 customers in the Asia Pacific in its first fiscal quarter of 2010.
Welcoming salesforce.com’s decision to locate its first data centre outside the United States in Singapore, Mr Andrew Khaw, Senior Director and Group Head, Industry Development, of the Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore, said, “This significant development will add to the richness of Singapore's infocomm landscape, increasing the confidence of SMEs in using SaaS for business productivity and contributing to our cloud computing eco-system.”
“As an established trusted hub, with excellent infocomm connectivity, Singapore is in a strong position to support fast-growing international infocomm companies such as salesforce.com in delivering innovative web-based services to customers here and globally,” he added.
According to Springboard Research, the Asia Pacific Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) market will reach US$1.16 billion by 2010, based on a compound annual growth rate of 66 per cent. By then, SaaS will comprise 15 per cent of the enterprise software applications market in the Asia Pacific.
"SaaS is moving beyond its roots in customer relationship management (CRM) into every area of the enterprise, including platforms for application development," said Mr Dane Anderson, CEO of Springboard Research. "With all segments of the cloud computing market growing, we are seeing applications and platforms being adopted across the board by enterprises in the region.”