Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Web development platform for on-demand software

A couple of months ago, Google and Salesforce.com made a sensational pact wherein Google will can help small enterprises in generating sales leads while Saleforce will take its turn turning these leads into actual customers.

A few days ago, Salesforce.com announced that it has developed a new rich web platform for building on-demand business software geared towards leading to an explosion of applications which is similar that to that with Facebook.

Salesforce.com, a San Francisco based company known for its talent for coming up with great catchphrases, calls this development as Force.com which is a "platform as a service". This platform can be used by non-programmers so they can easily make very attractive online applications which will connect with other within the fast expanding Salesforce ecosystem.

This is really nothing new and as I previously mentioned, Facebook has been quite busy these past few days handling open apps like these from its huge base of social networkers. Look at online sites like craigslist.org and you will see advertisements seeking programmers who can develop Facebook applications. And Saleforce.com recognizes with the words of Ariel Kelman, senior director of platform product marketing at Salesforce.com saying: "Once you provide the openness, we think you will see an explosion of apps analogous to Facebook."


Salesforce.com, a global leader in On-Demand Customer Relationship Management is also the developer of AppExchange, an application that can host on-demand software created with partners. It is fast catching up with CRM and ERP leaders such as SAP AG, Oracle Corp. and Microsoft Corp by constantly innovating its flagship CRM service.

In August, Saleforce.com has announced that during the second quarter, AppExchange has already 48,000 registered developers after about a year and a half from its release. These registered developers are independently working or for 348 independent software vendors that have created 642 applications.

In very stark contrast, Facebook, since its launching of its Facebook Platform in May, has only ore than 3,500 applications. The success of the system could be attributed t the popularity of social networking websites.

According to Kelman, much of the code can easily slide straight into the Force.com environment without a lot of rewriting so that software vendors or companies with existing Web applications can easily do the integration into their existing systems. He furthere added that "Porting over the user-interface elements you can do very quickly, but there will be some effort involved in migrating the database and logic. But after that, the ability to change your application becomes so much more flexible."

Open platforms are fast becoming more popular internet and more and more pluggable modules can be easily downloaded online. This is great indication of collaboration among many coders online and such scheme can bring out the best creativity in people while making them earn money for what they love doing in their most flexible schedules. The continued popularity of open platform will definitely mean more robust yet flexible business applications in the months to come.

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