On-demand CRM software provider Salesforce.com is
branching out to offer hosted application development technology
and online marketplace services to supplement its own software
services.
At its annual Dreamforce 2004 user conference in San Francisco,
the company announced an On-Demand Marketplace that will act as a
catalogue of hosted services and products that interoperate with
its applications.
The marketplace, which is built on top of the Salesforce.com
platform, is designed to help guide customers seeking to procure
enterprise resource planning, data warehousing or integration
technology products to link with their Salesforce.com software.
Salesforce.com said there would be 60 online product and
service suppliers participating.
The company is also rolling out a tool called Customforce.com,
which will allow developers to craft their own customised
applications around the Salesforce.com software architecture,
according to a statement by the chief executive officer Marc
Benioff.
The technology could supplant other products such as Microsoft
Access, he said, because Customforce.com will be simpler and easier
to use, and applications built around it will cost less to
deploy.
Among the software customers can craft are asset management and
human resources and recruiting applications.
Marc L Songini writes for Computerworld
