Picture credit: Salesforce

It was first announced at the Salesforce1 World Tour back in May, but now Salesforce has finally launched its first UK data centre, with France and Germany on the hit list for the future.

“It sends a signal to the market about the seriousness and the strategic nature of this market to us,” commented Salesforce chief operating officer George Hu at the time. The announcement also sends out a signal about Salesforce’s strategy; the UK data centre will be fully powered by renewable energy, as well as the proposed French and German centres, supporting the firm’s sustainability goals.

“The opening of Salesforce’s first European data centre underscores our commitment to customers and partners in the UK,” said Andrew Lawson, Salesforce SVP for UK and Ireland.

“The new data centre will support the unprecedented growth we’ve seen in the region and further accelerates the adoption of cloud, social and mobile technologies, empowering UK companies to connect with their customers in a whole new way.”

The big cloud vendors are moving towards European expansion. It’s the same path being taken by IBM. Back in July Big Blue announced a UK data centre from SoftLayer, with France and Germany also in the firm’s sights. Amazon Web Services also announced a new region in Germany last week.

Salesforce is going one step further to woo UK based customers, opening up an entire London base at the Heron Tower, near Liverpool Street.

The cloudy firm had aimed to call it the Salesforce Tower, but the proposal was nixed for now by the City of London Corporation. As Salesforce only rents six of the Tower’s 46 floors, opponents argue this isn’t a sufficient investment to warrant a whole name change.