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shiv@SFDCshiv@SFDC 

what is the deference between salesforce platform license and force.com free license ?

Hi All,

what is the deference between salesforce platform license and force.com-free license ?

When i login using different user i sees salesforce platform license allow me to interect with Accounts & Contacts. but force.com don't allow me to do this.

I have hard that salesforce is company which provides force.com platoform. Does salesforce provides salesforce platform also ?

When i create a new user in the org , it ask me to choose license... It has some options like :
Salesforce
Salesforce platform
Force.com - free
Force.com app subscibtion

If ablove list is user license than what is following ?
CONTACT MANAGER
GROUP
PROFESSIONAL
ENTERPRISE
PERFORMANCE

Please explain
Thanks
Peter_sfdcPeter_sfdc
Answering in reverse order:

Salesforce Edition
The following are your salesforce edition: 
CONTACT MANAGER
GROUP
PROFESSIONAL
ENTERPRISE
PERFORMANCE

This will govern every user in your org. It will also limit or add features. The watershed for what we consider platform features is Enterprise Edition. This is due to the enabling of things like custom profiles, standard API access, and advanced business process features like workflow and the Apex programming language. Think of "edition" as your organizations basic contract with the salesforce.com service. 

Salesforce User License

A common misperception about license is that your user license drives your profile. While this is true in the UI, this is not strictly true at the level of how the platform functions. In fact, it is the profile you select that drives your license. Each profile, is attached to a specific user license. So it is the assignment of the profile that actually determines license. You will discover this if you ever bulk load users using a data management tool. When bulk loading users, you need to provide a profile ID. The profile you assign will then drive the license for that user. 

So when you assign a profile, the associated user license then determines which features that specific user may gain access to. The easiest to distinguish are perhaps Salesforce and Salesforce Platform licenses. The Salesforce license is our standard CRM license, which includes platform access. In this instance, "platform" essentially means custom objects, tabs, and applications. So a user with the salesforce license will be able to access both CRM functionality (Opportunities and Leads), and could very well have access to a custom expense report application. The Salesforce Platform user will have zero access to the CRM functionality, but could be given access to the custom expense report application. If this user then needed to be granted access to CRM functionality, they would need to have a new user profile assigned with the appropriate license type attached. 

One important note here is that the standard objects Account and Contact are included in the Salesforce platform license. So if you're happy to use our business entity (Account) and person entity (Contact) schema, you need not recreate these for your platform license users. 

Force.com Free: I'm 99% certain that this license type is a deprecated license type. Once upon a time we gave away a basic one-application platform subscription as a full org. This is essentially a pared down platform license type. 

For more detail on specific CRM and Platform license types, I'd suggest reading this help topic (https://help.salesforce.com/HTViewHelpDoc?id=users_license_types_available.htm&language=en_US" target="_blank). This includse the information you are requesting about the "App Subscription" license, too. 
Munira MajmundarMunira Majmundar
Peter, very well explained.  Thanks!
Melissa PawlishenMelissa Pawlishen
I have another question on this subject. Does the data.com Free License provide less information than the Prospect License, or would you get less quality data?

Thank you!