Salesforce.com Delivers Apex, Reinventing Business Applications

SAN FRANCISCO, Jan. 16 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Salesforce.com , the technology and market leader in on-demand business services, today announced the arrival and availability of the Apex on-demand platform and programming language, a major milestone that will reinvent business applications. Delivered with Salesforce Winter' 07, the 21st generation of salesforce.com's industry-leading service, the multi-tenant Apex platform encompasses a complete feature set for building business applications such as data models and objects to manage data, a workflow engine for managing collaboration of data between users, a user interface model to handle forms and other interactions, and the Apex Web services API for programmatic access, mashups, and integration with other applications and data.

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Applications built with Apex will run on salesforce.com's service, freeing businesses for the first time from the burden of buying and deploying complex software infrastructure. With complete freedom to innovate, the ecosystem can create and run any business application on demand with the security, reliability, upgradeability, and ease-of-use for which salesforce.com is best known.

"With Apex, our message is clear: now you can create the next salesforce.com," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "The arrival of Apex heralds a new era in which all application categories will be available on demand. By making the Apex platform and programming language available, salesforce.com is enabling the ecosystem to lead the way for the next level of innovation in on demand. Every developer can use Apex today to start building the future."

Apex: Empowering the Future of On-Demand Applications

Apex will dramatically expand the universe of applications that can be created and run on demand. Developers and partners will be able to extend business applications far deeper into the enterprise with powerful applications never before possible on demand, including highly complex applications such as enterprise resource planning and inventory, highly transactional applications for those used in ecommerce, and highly intelligent applications such as those deployed for yield management and financial services. Developers will be able to create any custom application on demand, and do it faster, with less complexity and more power than previously possible.

Corporate and in-house developers can use Apex to customize the core features and functionality of their Salesforce deployments for their unique business needs. Apex also delivers the power to reprogram any component of Salesforce, such as Campaigns, Cases or Opportunities, or build entirely new components completely from scratch.

Apex will run completely on salesforce.com's service, eliminating the need for operating systems, databases, application and Web servers, data centers or other infrastructure requirements. Developers can harness the unlimited customization capabilities and flexible data model of the Apex platform to create B2B or B2C applications with industry-specific requirements and package and publish them on the AppExchange.

Apex Enables Multi-tenant Application Development as a Service

At the heart of the Apex platform is one of the key innovations of salesforce.com: multi-tenancy. In contrast to single-tenant counterparts, multi-tenant platforms share a single, common infrastructure and code base that is centrally maintained. Individual customer deployments are unique, separate, and secure within this shared multi-tenant platform, rather than separate physical stacks of hardware and software. Multi-tenant applications like Salesforce, and platforms, like Apex, are similar to consumer Web platforms like Yahoo, Amazon, and eBay -- all of which run a single code base that is shared by all users and upgraded simultaneously -- delivering all the benefits of innovative new releases, with none of the painful legacy of upgrades. The same power of multi-tenancy ensures that Salesforce customers do not have to rebuild their customizations or integrations every time the service is upgraded to the next version.

The Apex on-demand platform and Apex Code programming language represent the next phase in the creation of powerful business applications. Just as the mainframe gave way to client-server, salesforce.com is now ushering in multi- tenant application development with Apex Code so that any business application can be created on demand. The Apex platform offers a common security, sharing and data model, a shared query engine, and shared code execution. This enables developers to build applications faster and easier -- with no infrastructure requirements and a new way to bring their projects and offerings to the market.

The Apex On-demand Platform

Apex provides a complete platform for development as a service. In addition to the Apex programming language, the Apex platform provides capabilities for embedded mashups, analytics, mobility, workflow and approvals, and delivers intelligence with a new API. Additional features of the Apex platform include:

* Apex Web Services API: The Apex Web services API is one of the world's most widely used enterprise Web services, handling more than fifty percent of salesforce.com's 3.7 billion service transactions in salesforce.com's Q307. The Apex Web Services API makes it possible to access and manage complex data relationships -- such as a set of information about an account, all the products they have bought, and all of their contacts -- in a single request. This capability, analogous to database JOIN functionality, will enhance both the speed and simplicity of integrations, and will be unique to the Apex API. * Real Time Messaging and Integration: This new feature will allow other applications, including a middleware system, message bus or software application, to be immediately notified of business events in Salesforce, such as the creation of a new customer or the closing of a sales opportunity. With this capability, business processes that span multiple systems can be executed seamlessly and without any latency or delay. * Apex Code: New to the Apex on-demand platform is Apex Code, the world's first on-demand programming language. Apex Code extends the powerful and proven success of the Apex platform by introducing the ability to write code that runs on salesforce.com servers. This language makes possible the development of a new class of applications and features deployed entirely on demand. For more information please see separate release today at http://developer.salesforce.com/. Apex Code Developer Preview Program

The preview release of the Apex programming language will enable developers to learn the capabilities of the Apex language, write code and create applications, and provide feedback on Apex's design and capabilities. Apex Code will dramatically expand the reach, scope, and depth of applications available on the AppExchange and will enable any type of enterprise application to be delivered on demand. Developers may sign up for the Apex Code preview program at http://developer.salesforce.com/ .

Apex Developers Empowered to Create Successful On-Demand Businesses

Developers and partners can go from idea to success with salesforce.com: collaborate with the community via the IdeaExchange, build on the Apex on- demand platform, and market and sell with the AppExchange and AppStore. AppStore will provide a complete package of commercial services and revenue- sharing programs for developers and partners, who will be able to use AppStore as a global distribution network to market, sell, invoice and deliver the applications they have built using the Apex programming language and platform and made available on the AppExchange. Customers will be able to use AppStore as a single source for trying, buying and deploying on-demand applications from the AppExchange. AppStore will be the catalyst to unlock the value of Apex and the AppExchange, accelerating the vision for the creation, delivery, and success of any application on demand.

AppExchange Incubators and On-demand Industry Momentum

To further foster on-demand innovation, salesforce.com has announced global AppExchange incubators to help companies develop new products on the Apex platform, and help accelerate the success of existing AppExchange partners. Nineteen companies have already signed up for the first AppExchange incubator in San Mateo, Calif., including Appirio, Avankia, BackWeb, Bluewolf, Business Objects, Centive, Cloud 9 Analytics, Clicktools, Convenos, DomoDomain, Dreamfactory, Hyperion, InsideView, InvisibleCRM, Opsource, Right90, RingLead, VerticalResponse and Xactly.

"The Apex platform gives us the opportunity to quickly build and deliver new innovations to make our customers successful," said Chris Barbin, CEO, Appirio. "Additionally, with initiatives like the AppExchange incubator, salesforce.com is removing key critical barriers to startup success."

Further demonstrating momentum for the on-demand model, companies with applications on the AppExchange have raised more than $146 million from the venture capital community over the past year. These companies include: Before the Call, Contactual, Convoq, Dreamfactory, Echopass, Eloqua, iNeoMarketing, Intacct, InvisibleCRM, Jigsaw Data, Ketera, Mitrix, Nsite, Opsource, Rally Software, Spoke Software and Success Factors.

Apex and the AppExchange

Apex is the on-demand platform for the next generation of business applications. Apex reinvents traditional customization and integration and enables a whole new generation of on-demand applications that go beyond CRM. All Apex components and applications can be easily shared, exchanged and installed with a few simple clicks via salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, enabling all the innovation that Apex unleashes to benefit the entire on- demand community.

More than 500 applications are now available on the AppExchange, at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange.

Availability

With the delivery of Winter '07, the Apex on-demand platform is generally available today. The Apex programming language is available today for developer preview, and is currently scheduled to be available in beta to salesforce.com customers later in 2007.

AppStore services are currently scheduled to be offered in a phased approach throughout 2007: Standard Referral in Q1 of calendar 2007, Premium Referral in Q3 of calendar 2007, and AppStore Checkout in Q4 of calendar 2007.

About salesforce.com

Salesforce.com is the market and technology leader in on-demand business services. The company's Salesforce suite of on-demand CRM applications allows customers to manage and share all of their sales, support, marketing and partner information on-demand. Apex, the world's first on-demand platform, enables customers, developers and partners to build powerful new on-demand applications that extend beyond CRM to deliver the benefits of multi-tenancy and The Business Web across the enterprise. All Apex components and applications can be easily shared, exchanged and installed via salesforce.com's AppExchange directory, available at http://www.salesforce.com/appexchange. Customers can also take advantage of Successforce, salesforce.com's world-class training, support, consulting and best practices offerings.

As of October 31, 2006, salesforce.com manages customer information for approximately 27,100 customers and approximately 556,000 paying subscribers including Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), America Online (AOL), Avis Budget Group, Inc, Dow Jones Newswires, Nokia, Polycom and SunTrust Banks. Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM". For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com/, or call 1-800-NO- SOFTWARE.

NOTE: Salesforce.com is a registered trademark of salesforce.com, and Apex, AppExchange, The Business Web and Successforce are trademarks of salesforce.com, Inc., San Francisco, California. Other names used may be trademarks of their respective owners.