SAN FRANCISCO: BMC Software has teamed up with Salesforce.com to offer an IT service desk solution on the Force.com platform.

The companies said that the offering, due in the second quarter of 2010, will address customer demand for service desk functions delivered through the cloud.

The announcement was made at Dreamforce, the annual Salesforce customer and developer event held in San Francisco.

"We wanted one of the top 10 software companies to write a native app on Force.com," said Salesforce chief executive Marc Benioff during his keynote.

"Of course we have all written applications, but what we wanted was a big company to say this is one of the greatest development platforms we have seen."

Benioff explained he had first got together with BMC chief executive Bob Beauchamp two years ago over lunch to discuss the concept of a cloud service desk.

"The vision is tremendous when you think how many companies have service desks," Benioff added.

Dreamforce attendees were given an idea of how the Service Desk Express will work in an on-stage demonstration of the main on-demand dashboard that support staff will use to solve business users' IT issues.

Support staff will be able to personalise their dashboard and perform searches based on common problems, and staff will be able to base incidents and tasks on priorities and set alerts so that they are informed when customers are having problems.

"A strong, simplified and standardised service desk is critical to improving efficiency, increasing service levels and reducing costs," said Beauchamp.