Cloud computing has made significant changes to the IT/software development industry. Cloud platforms are one of the important components of cloud computing. Cloud platforms allow developers to develop apps and run them on the Cloud, including platforms to build on-demand applications and platforms as a service (PaaS). Salesforce.com has introduced the first on-demand platform called Force.com.

This chapter introduces the Force.com platform and explains designing and developing applications on the Force.com platform. The sample application scenario and Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) will be introduced at the end of this chapter. This chapter covers the following topics: