Salesforce.com
Until today, anyone wanting to deploy an application available on
Now, customers can subscribe to the platform alone, and pay either $50 or
In addition to subscribing to products available on AppExchange, customers
The reason for the move, explained Ariel Kelman, senior director of platform
“We’re decoupling the platform from the application, as more and more of our
Kelman added that corporate IT departments are beginning to view SaaS as way
“IT staff are starting to look at SaaS differently. They see it as a way for
Denis Pombriant, managing principal at Beagle Research, said the approach
IT staff will be able to lean on all that infrastructure, including
Sheryl Kingstone, an analyst with the Yankee Group, said the new pricing
She noted that there is no technological innovation here — merely a
She said the change also benefits the developer community, which will
“This is about moving the ecosystem forward.”
, known as the leading vendor of on-demand
customer relationship management (CRM) software, is shifting gears.
The company announced today that customers can now use its Apex and
AppExchange platforms without having to subscribe to its flagship Salesforce
Automation (SFA) application. As a result, it may leave a more lasting
imprint as the builder of an ecosystem than as a software vendor.
AppExchange, the company’s directory of third-party applications, would have
had to subscribe to SFA, as well. For instance, a customer wanting to equip
its human resources department with an HR application would have had to
first pony up for SFA, for which those users would have had no use.
$100 per user per month, depending on the level of service they require.
can also subscribe to the Apex platform to build their own applications.
product marketing at Salesforce.com, is that in many cases, customers have
expressed an interest in subscribing to tools that have nothing to do with
CRM, such as human resources, research and IT asset management.
customers use the platform to acquire other functionality,” Kelman told
internetnews.com.
to free them to do more valuable work rather than as a threat.
them to focus on delivering innovation and not just performing routine
maintenance,” said Kelman.
gives customers “not just software, not just the platform, but also the
infrastructure, the labor and the management to keep it all running.”
Salesforce.com’s Apex programming language, to develop tools that can give
their companies a competitive advantage, he said.
He added that the new subscription terms represent “another brick in the
wall ultimately helping to prove the value of the utility business software
model.”
model will save customers who want the platform but not SFA approximately 50
percent on the price of a subscription.
strategic one. “It’s solidifying [Salesforce.com] as a platform more and
more and making them less of an applications company,” she told
internetnews.com.
benefit from being able to develop and sell more applications over the
AppExchange directory. “There’s nothing new here [from a technological standpoint] — but the pricing was never there,” she said.
Salesforce.com Makes it All About The Platform
