SAN FRANCISCO, March 28 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Finetix, the leading financial services IT consulting firm, and salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM - News), the market and technology leader in on-demand business services, today announced the launch of Finetix Investor Relationship Management (FIRM) for asset managers and wealth managers on salesforce.com's AppExchange. Finetix developed FIRM specifically for asset and wealth managers to enable improved client acquisition and client retention. In addition, FIRM's analytics allow for improved management of the business, from ensuring that financial advisors are spending the right amount of time with the right clients and prospects to analyzing customer segmentation across products. FIRM joins the more than two dozen applications in the financial services category on the AppExchange, further expanding the selection of on-demand applications available to salesforce.com's more than 1,200 successful financial services customers.

Institutional asset management and wealth management have become increasingly competitive within the past several years. Today, there are more types of firms chasing a greater share of wallet from the same client base. The struggle for firms to acquire and retain clients against a crop of new competitors requires them to maintain much deeper client relationships. In addition, clients have become increasingly sophisticated and self-directed. Institutions, including pension funds, foundations, and endowments, demand greater communication on investment strategy, positions and portfolio valuations. Changing client demographics and "money in motion" mean more opportunities in the market. In this competitive landscape, relationship management is a key competitive edge.

FIRM is designed for asset and wealth managers who want to meet these demands. Utilizing FIRM, relationship managers have a centralized platform to understand a client's investment goals, what products to offer, view client portfolios, understand their total wallet makeup and where their money is invested. In addition, robust reporting allows managers to manage and improve the efficiency and effectiveness of their line of business, with the ability to report on aspects such as relationship manager Key Performance Indicators (KPI), customer segmentation across financial products and other key metrics that drive the business. FIRM is offered through Finetix's Client Relationship Management Practice and complements Finetix's other offerings, including trading, risk management and client and internal reporting systems.

FIRM features include:

* Client and prospect management
* Centralized portfolio view
* Onboarding and client retention tools and surveys
* Fully customizable reporting
* Back office integration
* Point and click customization
* Access from desktop, laptop and Blackberry

Built on salesforce.com's Apex on-demand platform, FIRM is immediately available for a test drive and deployment at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange in the financial services category.

"Our clients are looking for an integrated platform to help them manage their business and improve client interaction," said David Chapman, CTO of Finetix. "Our goal is to develop simple scalable solutions that will help relationship managers bring new money into their investment offerings and retain and grow existing investments more effectively. In addition, the AppExchange directory and marketplace, in combination with our Agile project delivery methodology, allows us to deliver business value rapidly."

"More than 1,200 financial services companies have already embraced the business benefits of salesforce.com's on-demand model, including shorter implementation times and faster time to business value," said Tien Tzuo, senior vice president, financial services, salesforce.com. "Asset and wealth managers can now go directly to salesforce.com's AppExchange and quickly deploy FIRM with just a few clicks for industry-specific functionality to help improve their day-to-day operations."

Salesforce.com Circle of Success for Financial Services Customers

Salesforce.com and its partners are delivering a circle of success for financial services institutions: powerful and easy-to-use on-demand CRM applications that drive high user adoption rates; the IdeaExchange for community empowerment; the Apex Developer Network providing the tools and resources for developer innovation; the Apex platform, which enables IT success by quickly and easily addressing customization and integration needs; and the freedom of choice provided by the AppExchange marketplace and directory, featuring pre-integrated financial services partner applications, such as FIRM, to build out successful customer implementations. This new model is replacing traditional financial systems that have been hard to use, do not offer quality CRM features and functions, and are difficult to integrate with external data and systems.

Financial services customers now have a wealth of choices to extend the success they have generated with salesforce.com's on-demand business applications with new partner solutions available on the AppExchange for Capital Markets, Insurance, Mortgage, Banking, Wealth Management and more. These new partner solutions extend the powerful features, quick deployment, lower overall costs and other benefits of multi-tenant on-demand business applications to customers and prospects in the financial services industry. For more information, please visit http://www.salesforce.com/financialservices

Apex and the AppExchange

Apex is the on-demand platform for the next generation of business applications. Apex reinvents traditional customization and integration and enables 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.

Finetix Investor Relationship Management for AppExchange is one of more than 550 applications that 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 on-demand platform is generally available today. The Apex programming language is available today for developer preview, and is currently scheduled to be available in beta to salesforce.com customers later in 2007.

About Finetix

Finetix is the leading Financial Services IT consulting firm specializing in delivering custom solutions to clients trading in Capital Markets. We have an unsurpassed track record in delivering technically excellent solutions frequently, reliably and with reduced risk. With over twelve years of experience in delivering trading, risk management and e-commerce platforms to the major global institutions, service providers and hedge funds in capital markets Finetix has an unsurpassed track record in delivering business solutions using a number of agile and other iterative approaches resulting in clients getting the actual solution they want in a timeframe that works.

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 January 31, 2007, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 29,800 customers and approximately 646,000 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.

Source: salesforce.com, Inc.