Salesforce.com Adds Hosted Software Tools

Salesforce.com is strengthening its foothold in the growing area of hosted software with its new online marketplace for on-demand business applications, according to The Wall Street Journal. The AppExchange marketplace was created to allow software developers and Salesforce.com customers to distribute their applications via Salesforce’s platform. Salesforce says it will not retain any portion of the fees generated by the AppExchange service but will benefit from further use of its subscription-based software.

There’s no denying Salesforce’s strong position in the software-as-a-service marketplace and the pressure the company has put on traditional software vendors. But don’t believe all the hype. Hosted solutions aren’t going to completely displace traditional enterprise business software any time soon. And Salesforce.com isn’t going to take over the world. In the Jan. 15 issue of CIO magazine, we looked closely at the on-demand CRM marketplace, largely dominated by Salesforce and found that the software-as-a-service option wasn’t always the best solution. Sure, hosted applications are sometimes cheaper and easier to roll out than the software that lives on your own machines. But if you think on-demand means that all you have to do is flip a switch, you’re dead wrong.

By Stephanie Overby