How Galorath Quantified the Salesforce.com Platform With SEER For Software (SEER-SEM)
The following summarizes the report prepared by Galorath’s Dr. Tarbet on the process of building specific Knowledge Bases and validation of SEER for Software (SEER-SEM) for the Salesforce.com platform (Force.com). Force.com enables you to deliver enterprise-class Web applications on demand—without the cost of deploying infrastructure, supporting the software-as-a-service paradigm (SaaS). This was customer funded (by a potential user of salesforce.com).
Galorath established a technical interface with internal Salesforce experts, consultants with extensive experience developing software in the Salesforce.com Platform, and with current users of the on-demand SaaS capabilities provided by the platform. From the technical discussions, preliminary analyses of expected effort impacts on the software development effort for an IT project were derived. A Salesforce.com Platform Knowledge Base and a language definition for the APEX language has been developed for SEER-SEM from the technical inputs.
Bottom Line 30% to 40% Savings: The model indicates that effort can be expected to be reduced from 30% to 40% over developing the same project in JAVA for projects that are aligned to the Customer Relations Management model, which serves as the basis for the Salesforce.com Platform. Read more
Step Four: Software Sizing
Size is generally the most significant (but certainly not the only) cost and schedule driver. Overall scope of a software project is defined by identifying not only the amount of new software that must be developed, but also must include the  amount of preexisting, COTS, and other software that will be integrated into the new system. In addition to estimating product size, you will need to estimate any rework that will be required to develop the product, which will generally be expressed as source lines of code (SLOC) or function points, although there are other possible units of measure. To help establish the overall uncertainty, the size estimate should be expressed as a least-likely-most range.
Predicting Size
Whenever possible, start the process of size estimation using formal descriptions of the requirements such as the customer’s request for proposal or a software requirements specification. You should reestimate the project as soon as more scope information is determined. The most widely used methods of estimating product size are:
