Karl Strauss Brewing Company Uses Salesforce.com and the AppExchange to Create a Custom Mobile Solution for Its Field Sales Team

SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 20 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com , the market and technology leader in on-demand business services, today announced that Karl Strauss Brewing Company has customized its Salesforce SFA and Apex Mobile applications to meet the specific needs of its field sales teams. The brewery is also using partner applications from the AppExchange directory to integrate data from Microsoft Dynamics GP with Salesforce, creating a single, centralized source of customer data for sales operations. Applications available via the AppExchange directory are built using Apex, the world's first on-demand platform.

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Karl Strauss Brewing Company is one of the 27,100 companies of all sizes, industries and geographies that comprised the salesforce.com customer base as of October 31, 2006. Revenue and subscribers will be recognized as the service is delivered.

"Our company is successful and growing, and we were looking for a way to help our field reps transition from order takers to service and relationship managers; to take that extra step for our customers," said John Snead, Director of Beer Operations at Karl Strauss Brewing Company. "AppExchange has allowed us to provide our field team with complete access to information they need -- while in the field -- to provide the best possible service. We've been able to create new selling opportunities because our reps have more flexibility and are empowered with a richer amount of customer knowledge to better define our customer needs."

The brewery used the Apex platform to build and customize applications to suit its unique business needs and optimize sales operations. It customized Salesforce to track multi-leveled relationship information about current and potential beer customers including funnel-status for in-process opportunities, demographic profile data, potential volume, alcohol licensing status, geographic detail, and customer contact personal information. The company also developed a tailored application to track brewery vehicle repair and maintenance expenses, for comparison against territorial profitability and to identify areas for improved performance.

Additionally, the Apex mobile solution maximizes efficiency for the brewery's field service representatives by allowing them to easily complete all necessary order forms via a Blackberry mobile device without changing screens. Within a matter of minutes, the account data is wirelessly transmitted to the home office, an order invoice number is assigned and all of the data is available in the Salesforce application.

To help integrate back-office data in Salesforce, Karl Strauss Brewing Company deployed partner applications from the AppExchange directory, including:

-- Scribe Sales Order Component -- extends the functionality of Salesforce to support order integration with ERP systems, enabling users to convert opportunities to orders and automatically pass those orders to the back office -- Scribe Insight for AppExchange -- seamlessly integrates the Salesforce environment with existing on-premise third-party and custom applications in a simple, customizable, cost effective, and straightforward manner -- Salesforce Integration for Microsoft Dynamics GP -- provides real-time integration of customers, products, orders, and invoices between Salesforce and Microsoft Dynamics GP (formerly Microsoft Great Plains)

"With Salesforce, our field team is more effective and business data is readily available for our sales, finance and management teams," added Snead. "By integrating data across our organization, the Salesforce solution has enabled us to more accurately forecast our sales and manage our overall costs. It's been a great success and key to growing our business."

Applications available via the AppExchange directory are built using Apex, the world's first on-demand platform. The Apex platform, formerly known as the AppExchange platform, is available today. As previously announced, the next release of the Apex platform is currently scheduled to be available in conjunction with the release of Winter '07, and the Apex programming language is currently scheduled to be available during the first half of 2007.

About Karl Strauss Brewery

Karl Strauss Brewing Company is the brewer and distributor of Southern California's micro-brewed craft beer. Based out of San Diego, the brewery's diverse portfolio of world-class beers showcase the passion and commitment its employees have for creating and sharing good beer. Combining this with a deep connection to it's local roots and a strong focus on customer and community relationships, Karl Strauss Brewing Company is recognized throughout Southern California as a reliable partner and leader in the regional beer industry. When Karl Strauss Brewing Company was founded in 1988 in San Diego, it was the first brewery in the region in 50 years. Since then it has grown to include a 22,000 sq ft main brewery in the Pacific Beach area of San Diego and six showcase brewery-restaurant stores located throughout Southern California. For more information please visit http://www.karlstrauss.com/ , or call 858-273-BREW.

Apex and the AppExchange

Apex, the world's first on-demand platform, provides unprecedented ease of customization and integration enabling a whole new generation of on-demand applications that go beyond CRM. All Apex components and applications can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, enabling all the innovation that Apex unleashes to benefit the entire on-demand community.

More than 430 applications are now available on salesforce.com's AppExchange, the world's first on-demand application directory, found at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange .

The Apex platform, formerly known as the AppExchange platform, is available today. As previously announced, the next release of the Apex platform is currently scheduled to be available in conjunction with the release of Winter '07, and the Apex programming language is currently scheduled to be available during the first half of 2007.

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services. The company's Salesforce suite of on-demand CRM applications allows customers to manage and share all of their sales, support, marketing and partner information on-demand. Apex, the world's first on-demand platform, enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful new on-demand applications that extend beyond CRM to deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy and The Business Web across the enterprise. All Apex components and applications can be easily shared, exchanged and installed via salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange . Customers can also take advantage of

Successforce, salesforce.com's world-class training, support, consulting and best practices offerings.

As of October 31, 2006, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 27,100 customers and approximately 556,000 paying subscribers including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), America Online (AOL), Avis Budget Group, Inc, Dow Jones Newswires, Nokia, Polycom 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://www.salesforce.com/ , or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

NOTE: Salesforce.com is a registered trademark of salesforce.com, and Apex, AppExchange, The Business Web and Successforce are trademarks of salesforce.com, Inc., San Francisco, California. Other names used may be trademarks of their respective owners.