Toyota Friend to Be Powered by Salesforce Chatter
TOKYO (May 22, 2011) – Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM] and Toyota Motor Corporation (TMC) [NYSE: TM] announced today that they have formed a strategic alliance to build Toyota Friend, a private social network for Toyota customers and their cars. Toyota Friend will be powered by Salesforce Chatter, a private social network used by businesses, and will be offered, first in Japan, initially with Toyota’s electric vehicles (EV) and plug-in hybrid vehicles (PHV) due in 2012.
Toyota Friend will be a private social network that connects Toyota customers with their cars, their dealership, and with Toyota. Toyota Friend will provide a variety of product and service information as well as essential maintenance tips, creating a rich car ownership experience. For example, if an EV or PHV is running low on battery power, Toyota Friend would notify the driver to re-charge in the form of a “tweet”-like alert. In addition, while Toyota Friend will be a private social network, customers can choose to extend their communication to family, friends, and others through public social networks such as Twitter and Facebook. The service will also be accessible through smart phones, tablet PCs, and other advanced mobile devices.
Regarding the alliance, salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said:
“Toyota and salesforce.com share a vision to take the auto industry into the future. Social and mobile technologies will transform the car ownership experience, and we are excited to be Toyota’s partner in this transformation.”
TMC President Akio Toyoda said:
“Social networking services are transforming human interaction and modes of communication. The automobile needs to evolve in step with that transformation. I am always calling for Toyota to make ever-better cars. The alliance that we announce today is an important step forward in achieving that goal.”
Salesforce.com is a fast-growing enterprise cloud computing company that has been in operation for more than 12 years. The company has nearly 100,000 customers worldwide, including large enterprises, small and medium-sized businesses, and government organizations. The company’s social, open, and mobile technologies represent the next generation of enterprise cloud computing.
To date, TMC has developed its own telematics services to connect people, cars and their surroundings. Through Toyota Friend, TMC aims to offer its telematics services worldwide. Moving forward, TMC plans to advance toward the realization of future mobility by teaming up proactively with global IT companies.
Although TMC and salesforce.com will launch their partnership with the building of Toyota Friend, in the future the companies plan to develop cloud services for TMC’s open platform and create new business opportunities leveraging their respective strengths.
Salesforce.com and TMC will each make investments in Toyota Media Service Co. (TMS), which oversees TMC’s global cloud platform development. Salesforce.com will invest 223 million yen and TMC will invest 442 million yen. Microsoft Corporation, which on April 6 announced a strategic partnership with TMC to build a global platform for next generation telematics services, will invest 350 million yen.
About Salesforce.com
Salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company that has transformed the way companies collaborate and communicate. Salesforce.com is leading the effort to bring Cloud 2, the next paradigm for computing, to the enterprise by offering its customers the social collaboration, mobility and openness that are the hallmark of this new world. The company’s platform and application services include:
- Salesforce Chatter, a private social network for your enterprise
- The Sales Cloud, for sales force automation and contact management
- The Service Cloud, for customer service and support solutions
- Radian6, for social media monitoring and engagement
- The Jigsaw Data Cloud, for ensuring data integrity and quality
- The Force.com platform, for custom application development
- Heroku, for building social and mobile apps in Ruby
- The AppExchange, the world’s leading marketplace for enterprise cloud computing applications
Salesforce.com offers the fastest path to customer success with cloud computing. As of April 30, 2011, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 97,700 customers including Allianz Commercial, Dell, Japan Post, Kaiser Permanente, KONE, and SunTrust Banks.
Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol “CRM.” For more information please visit http://salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.
“Safe harbor” statement under the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995: This press release contains forward-looking statements about the expected release of the Toyota Friend social network. The achievement or success of the matters covered by such forward-looking statements involve risks, uncertainties and assumptions. If any such risks or uncertainties materialize or if any of the assumptions prove incorrect, our results regarding Toyota Friend could differ materially from the results expressed or implied by the forward-looking statements we make. The risks and uncertainties referred to above include – but are not limited to – changes in business plans or in the alliance between salesforce.com and TMC, the novelty of the type of network contemplated as part of Toyota Friend, difficulties or delays in finalizing the business requirements for Toyota Friend, and difficulties or delays in developing the technology contemplated by Toyota Friend. Further information on these and other factors that could affect the company’s financial results is included in the reports on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K and in other filings we make with the Securities and Exchange Commission from time to time, including the company’s Form 10-Q that will be filed for the fiscal quarter ended April 30, 2011, and our Form 10-K filed for the fiscal year ended January 31, 2011. These documents are available on the SEC Filings section of the Investor Information section of the company’s website at www.salesforce.com/investor. Salesforce.com, inc. assumes no obligation and does not intend to update these forward-looking statements, except as required by law.
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Source: salesforce.com
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