Salesforce.com Enables ISVs To Go Beyond On-Demand CRM

The Salesforce.com OEM Edition lets ISVs build their own on-demand applications that might--or might not--be related to CRM, the company said. To participate, ISVs must pay $25 per user per month to build on Salesforce.com's AppExchange infrastructure. Current ISV partners, such as Remend and DreamFactory can use the offering to bring their wares to a broader audience, Salesforce.com said.

Salesforce.com introduced AppExchange in January. The company said there have been 600 customer installations, and more than 250 applications are available.

Like many other software vendors, San Francisco-based Salesforce.com is focusing its partner efforts on ISVs rather than on VARs or other channel players that do more implementation, setup and customization work. Traditional VARs get a one-time 10 percent referral fee for bringing new business to Salesforce.com but no recurring revenue from the deal. However, Salesforce.com is relying on larger integrators for an array of services surrounding its offering.

Lately, there's been a flurry of activity in the on-demand business applications arena. Earlier this week, RightNow Technologies bought Salesnet, another CRM on-demand vendor, for $9 million in cash. SAP last week restated its plans to offer on-premise and on-demand CRM based on the same code base, and on Tuesday NetSuite demonstrated more features of its latest NetSuite 11 ERP/CRM suite entry, saying that it brings the ease of CRM to the more esoteric world of ERP back-office processes and tasks.

Typical of the rhetoric in this market segment, NetSuite CEO Zach Nelson--who has characterized NetSuite 11 as "SAP for the rest of us"--slammed SAP's midmarket BusinessOne as "stone-age software" and said SAP is trying to retrofit its enterprise CRM for smaller companies in its on-demand CRM effort.

At Sapphire 2006 last week, SAP executives told CRN they are working on an on-demand version of BusinessOne, although the company is waiting for demand to develop. Pricing, packaging and release dates are not set yet.