Salesforce, the cloud pioneer known for customer management software, is going into health care. In an announcement on Thursday, Salesforce and Philips, the Dutch electronics maker, are jointly announcing what they call an "open cloud-based, health care platform." That means, they say, health care software developers, producers of medical devices, health care providers and insurance companies will be able to link to the Salesforce health cloud. The foray into health care is a significant step by Salesforce into a specific industry, as opposed to supplying offerings that span industries, like customer relationship management software as a service.
