Salesforce builds app swap shop

Site lets users review and test programs

Salesforce.com has unveiled a marketplace for showcasing and exchanging hosted applications. This could offer a powerful base for IT buyers collating software services beyond Salesforce's mainstay customer relationship management tools.

AppExchange will let developers programming for the Salesforce platform make their applications and components available under their own terms. A web site populated with 35 Salesforce programs and the same number from third-parties is available now, and the service will be supported in the Winter '06 release of Salesforce.

"It's the most exciting and important idea we have worked on," said Salesforce chief Marc Benioff. "It's an eBay [or] iTunes music store for enterprise applications."

The AppExchange site lists reviews and lets users test programs. The first batch includes tools for managing projects, staff expenses and human resources.

Salesforce will not charge software vendors but hopes to capitalise by attracting more subscribers as functionality broadens. "We have 2,500 users in SunTrust Bank but they have 25,000 staff," Benioff said.

"I want to go back to customers and say we can repurpose or reuse code whether it's from us, independent software vendors or third parties such as Accenture," he added.

Users welcomed the plans. Jim Wilson of SunTrust Bank, said, "We view [the Salesforce platform] as a one-stop shop for objects and apps."

Bruce Richardson of analyst AMR Research said AppExchange could help Salesforce edge into the territory of enterprise apps vendors. "I think we'll see the product platform going to small firms and [users of] things like Onyx and Great Plains and then start to convince the grey-haired CIOs," he said.