I have reviewed the sales cloud and platform edition comparisons. There is no direct comparison but from my understanding platform enterprise is the same as sales enterprise minus the standard CRM objects: Opportunity, Leads, Cases, Forecasts, and Solutions.
Are these the only differences?
The thing that makes me believe I am missing something is that platform enterprise which seems to have all the force.com functionality minus some of the pre-built standard objects is $25/user/month while professional edition which is missing major pieces of functionality is $65/user/month.
Also, according to the user license types documentation:
Salesforce platform license: This license is not available for new customers.
So what kind of user licenses do you actually get when you buy a platform enterprise edition?
Best Answer
I believe those are the differences. Think of platform as more of a license of you're getting the cloud framework/platform to build your instance or apps. You get some standard items like reports, dashboards, documents, accounts and contacts...but everything else you want you have to build out. Also in a multi-license environment you may have both standard CRM sales cloud licenses and also platform licenses....with each having specific use cases (sales cloud license for sales and maybe services, platform for your core administration departments).
In regards to your last item, it may be because it was rebranded as force.com license.