Salesforce.com looks to sell application developer service

Computerworld - CRM software provider Salesforce.com Inc. is offering a new application development service that it claims will end some of the headache and burden of crafting software for customers.
The San Francisco-based company yesterday announced that it will deliver everything required by software developers directly over the Internet with its new offering, called Sforce.
According to Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff, customers will have access to the development platform they need, including a database, document manager and calendaring and security tools, without having to invest in or maintain them. Regardless of their physical location, the developers can access Sforce via the Web and use it to extend Salesforce.com CRM applications or any third-party vendor's applications, or to craft their own.
The company has partnered with Microsoft Corp., Sun Microsystems Inc. and BEA Systems Inc. to support its SOAP-based software hooks and services as part of Sforce. That means developers can use tools to which they are already accustomed, such as Visual Studio. Salesforce.com will also provide the infrastructure and technology platform it has deployed for its CRM offering to the development community, along with its own reusable application services.
For instance, Benioff said, a customer could use the Sforce utility to create an enterprisewide digital asset management application that's accessible by in-house users, customers and partners via any Web-enabled device. Salesforce.com would provide the authentication, security and storage for the application inside its own data center. Any end user could thus access documents, video and audio files, or presentations as part of the service.
Sforce lets an IT department build up functionality to complement its Salesforce.com footprint while delivering that functionality in a hosted environment, said Wendy Close, an analyst at Gartner Inc. in Stamford, Conn. It also pushes the software-as-service concept toward developers. Sforce will most likely appeal to larger companies that need something more than what Salesforce.com can provide, she said, as well as to third-party software makers, such as Business Objects SA, which can sell their tools as add-ons to the core Salesforce.com product.
Nevertheless, Close expressed caution. "I'm not sure how much buy-in it will get initially, but I think it will be a strong selling point for the core Salesforce.com CRM solution," she said.
Sforce is available now. Salesforce.com is offering up to three free Sforce user licenses, plus 10MB of free storage for the first year. Beyond that, it will cost $50 per user per month.