Salesforce today announced its first European data centre, located in Slough, UK. Another three facilities are planned for Europe and will support the company’s growing base of customers in the region. Salesforce claims that the new site is powered by 100 percent renewable energy sources.

In addition to the European Data Centre in the UK, Salesforce plans to open data centres in France and Germany in 2015 to support adoption of the company’s cloud computing services.

Welcome to Europe
“The opening of Salesforce’s first European Data Centre underscores our commitment to customers and partners in the UK,” said Andrew Lawson, senior vice president for UK and Ireland, Salesforce. “The new data centre will support the growth we’ve seen in the region and further accelerates the adoption of cloud, social and mobile technologies."

Salesforce said that the global shift to the cloud has opened the door to new social and mobile technologies, and has created unprecedented growth in spending on cloud computing by companies across Europe. Salesforce announced plans earlier this year to increase strategic investments in Europe, its fastest growing region in fiscal year 2014.

In addition to investing in three European Data Centres, Salesforce announced new headquarters in France and the UK, expanded its German presence with a new office in Berlin and is adding more than 500 new jobs across Europe during its fiscal year 2015.

The company says that it wants 100 percent of its data centre operations powered with renewable energy. To that end, the new data centre in the UK, and the upcoming data centres in France and Germany, will consume nothing but 'clean' electricity.

Salesforce continues to be one of the top-performing IT companies of recent years and has morphed into a platform with which to create add-on applications to the original CRM base which integrates with the central application suite. The next step - becoming a data-centric technology ‘bridge’ between its customers and the sales teams who use it - cannot be too far ahead.