Cloud computing is the white-hot topic in information technology and salesforce.com is the leader in enterprise cloud computing. It’s incredible to consider, especially since when we started in 1999, the term cloud computing wasn’t even used. We didn’t have much in those early days: just a rented apartment as an office, a server stored in a closet, and a small group of developers (sleep deprived and living on beef jerky). What we did have, though, made up for what we lacked. We were motivated by a vision to change the software industry, and we had a simple idea about how to make it more democratic.

Businesses drastically needed more efficient and economical enterprise software, and once customers were experiencing success with our CRM application, we realized that we could achieve something even more significant. What if we made our platform available to let others build their own cloud apps? The idea to offer our platform as a service was also a way to resolve our own problem: customers were demanding more apps, and we couldn’t build everything ourselves. But – more importantly, and something that as an engineer I could truly appreciate – it offered an opportunity to change the landscape for anyone who created applications.

There was so much that was arduous about software development. (If you haven’t been there, trust me; I was one of those sleep-deprived developers.) There were the purchases: networking devices, storage systems, databases, app servers, data centers. Then we had to write the software and ensure it was fast, high quality, mobile and above all scaled for the Internet. There were technology issues to address, such as authentication and availability. It seemed as if the to-do list never ended…

Those are the words of Parker Harris, Cofounder, salesforce.com. They have been excerpted from Parker’s Foreword for my recent book, Thinking of Force.com as your Key to the Cloud Kingdom, co-authored by Ian Gotts.

Alok Misra