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Salesforce.com Acquires Heroku; Emphasizes ‘Cloud 2’ Market

Salesforce.com today announced its definitive agreement to acquire Heroku, a fast-growing cloud application platform for writing Ruby-based applications. The transaction of approximately $212 million is expected to finalize in Salesforce.com's fiscal fourth quarter ending Jan. 31, 2011, subject to customary closing conditions, according to a statement.

"The next era of cloud computing is social, mobile and real-time — I call it Cloud 2," said Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com Chairman and CEO. "Ruby is the language of Cloud 2, and Heroku is the leading Ruby application platform-as-a-service for Cloud 2 that is fueling this growing community. We think this acquisition will uniquely position Salesforce.com as the cornerstone for the next generation of app developers."

Heroku was founded in 2007 and is currently a leading Ruby Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) solution, focused on streamlining the deployment and management of next-generation cloud apps. Ruby is credited as a top development language used to write next-generation apps that are designed to be social, collaborative and deliver real-time access to information across mobile devices. The company’s current app roster includes Groupon, Hulu, and Twitter.

With demand for Cloud 2 apps increasing, new platforms and languages are required. The acquisition of Heroku is designed to help Salesforce.com accelerate to the next era of cloud computing, within the enterprise and across the entire industry.

Salesforce.com’s acquisition of Heroku will give the company access to Heroku’s team and community of Ruby developers, as well as its technology and intellectual property assets. According to a statement, Salesforce.com expects that with VMforce, the enterprise Java cloud for more than 6 million Java developers, Heroku will help the platform excel in the Cloud 2 application field and extend its leadership in the cloud computing market. The acquisition is designed to attract and serve a critical mass of developers, customers and ISVs wanting an open and scalable Cloud 2 platform.

This business venture will give Salesforce.com an increased share in the worldwide market for public IT cloud services, which market research firm IDC forecasts will grow 27% a year, to $55.5 billion by 2014.