Will's Web Watch: Marc Benioff's 'field of dreams'

Growing in numbers, growing in speed,
Can't fight the future, Can't fight what I see.
People they come together...

Far be it from me to fall into the pretentious trap of opening a column with some loosely justified song lyrics but those lines - from 'We are all made of stars' by diminutive baldy-musician (and Pentium 4 marketing fund beneficiary) Moby - were the very deliberate choice of Salesforce.com to close its AppForce event in San Francisco last week.

Why? Well, the company would have us believe the lyrics sum up the growing community of developers who are flocking to get their applications hosted on Salesforce.com's AppExchange platform.

However, an equally relevant - if slightly less cool - cultural reference might be the sentimental baseball and cornfield-vandalism flick Field of Dreams. Marc Benioff, the outspoken CEO of Salesforce.com, clearly believed AppExchange was very much a case of 'if you build it, they will come...'. And it looks like he may be right.

Currently there are nearly 300 applications on the AppExchange - some produced by Salesforce.com but the majority developed by independents who are embracing the captive audience of the CRM upstart's installed user-base to add a hitherto non-existent route to market.

The closest comparison which Benioff himself offers is to Apple's iTunes. Salesforce.com designed and hosts the service, as Apple did iTunes, while everybody else provides the compelling content. For pop stars read independent software vendors and you'll see the analogy only stretches so far.

Certainly Benioff and co have spotted and exploited great potential here by asking a key question: 'Why innovate when you can provide an attractive platform to the legions of ISVs already doing great things out there?' Although the company is clearly doing nothing out of altruism, it does provide a platform for online apps which deserve the exposure.

For example, among those companies I caught up with at the event was iRows, an Israel-based start-up offering on-demand spreadsheets, whose founder told me Salesforce.com approached him to redress any notion that these ISVs are all beating a path to Marc Benioff's door.

Yoah Bar David, founder of iRows, admits his offering lacks some of the functionality of Excel but claims it certainly does all the things 90 per cent of Excel users would ever need to do.

Added to that, the fact it is hosted online (like all AppExchange apps) means it is accessible from anywhere, from any desktop with a browser and enables users to truly collaborate.

And that is the key. Other companies presenting at AppExchange tell the same story: 'We're online, so this is quicker, easier, more accessible and collaborative.'

Some companies will rely on AppExchange to define their success. Niche applications will see a presence on AppExchange as a major springboard. Other companies with wider clout are there because it's just another channel they may as well exploit.

Another spreadsheet offering comes courtesy of JotSpot, founded by Joe Kraus who made his millions from setting up Excite. And then there is Zimbra, a tool that offers 'an Outlook killer' - calendar, contact management and email fully attuned to the data and systems held in a Salesforce.com database.

The list goes on. The most popular applications on the AppExchange are currently for project management (it really isn't as cool as iTunes is it?), possibly because the obvious, project-based nature of their use makes them easily trialled.

Time may show that Salesforce.com's 'first mover' advantage is considerable in fostering this kind of development community and in keeping a now eight-year-old brand (which is probably 30-something in 'internet years') synonymous with cutting-edge application innovation.

But as the list of applications grows, Salesforce.com must prepare to deal with questions about its future growth and the rate of growth it can support - such as: how many conflicting applications can the service support, while still being useful to end users? And to what degree will Salesforce.com maintain control as gatekeeper for the platform?

Assuming early demand for access to the AppExchange is not synonymous with the best applications getting in on day one there are also questions about how, when or whether Salesforce.com reviews the applications available on AppExchange.

But then the service is only five-months-old and initial success and spin is no substitute for longevity. However, the fact the greatest problems Salesforce.com is likely to encounter in the short-term are liable to be related to the success of the AppExchange platform means, in the grand scheme of things, these are good problems to have.