Salesforce plays integration card

Moves by software as a service giant Salesforce will boost its enterrprise standing

Salesforce.com will today bolster the on-demand model’s enterprise credentials with a series of moves designed to automate integration with critical systems.

Under the ApexConnect umbrella brand, Salesforce will offer a new messaging API, Oracle 11i integrations, and new integration partners on the AppExchange online marketplace.

Due to ship at about the same time as the Winter 07 release, the ConnectOut API will let other software link to Salesforce in real time to support multi-hop business processes. For example, a new customer entry created in Salesforce could then populate a back-end database or ERP system and trigger an email alert.

ConnectOracle, due early next year, will let users synchronise data in both directions with the latest Oracle 11i database software. Priced at $12,000 annually, it will be limited to Enterprise Edition and Unlimited Edition customers.

David Bradshaw of analyst company Ovum said the integration efforts would be useful for large firms. “We live in a complex world. You look at a customer like Cisco with 15,000 Salesforce users and they’re going to need to connect to all sorts of other systems,” he said.

In the first half of next year, Salesforce also plans to introduce the Apex programming language, opening up its own approach to developing multi-tenancy applications. However, some critics argue that the move could leave customers prone to lock-in, complexity and security issues.