Where’s the “App” in AppExchange?
Ok, ok, I’m starting to feel bad writing about Salesforce.com. Well, maybe not. Someone has to do it, right? This week is Dreamforce, where Salesforce runs ’round town tooting their own horn much to the chagrin of individuals who feel their vision isn’t so hot. In all seriousness, why do some of us not see Salesforce as the save-all answer or as a “shining star” in the industry? Well, a prior post of mine discusses the introduction of Apex as one reason, but what else? Let’s start with finding the apps in AppExchange.
AppExchange, based on my interpretation of the very clear
If we look at this “ecosystem” of 350+ applications, what is the breakdown? What might a stricter taxonomy look like? I recently compiled a list of these 350+ applications (I came up with 343, but I may have missed 8+) to do a little investigation. I found some wonderful tidbits of information. Did you know that at the time I retrieved the data (week of October 2, 2006)…
- …24% of all listed applications were built by Salesforce.com rather than by partner vendors
- …that 6 out of the 8 (that’s right, 75%) “Most Popular” applications are apps built by Salesforce.com and that are free.
- …many of these apps extend the Salesforce.com main application functionality in ways that would traditionally classify the said “app” as a “plug-in” (Seriously, would anyone classify Clippy or the Microsoft Equation Editor as applications, or analogously would you buy a “song” on iTunes that was a Snare Drum Loop?)
While to some this may seem unimportant, it is in fact quite important when trying to create a metric for measuring AppExchange’s effective mass. I doubt a doctor taking your weight during a physical exam would accept 80 lbs of lead in your pants as part of your weight, which is why I look at AppExchange from this “no lead in the pants” perspective. Deducting the 24% of AppExchange entities (I will not call them “apps” until I know which are, in fact, “apps”) that are built by Salesforce.com, somewhere near 260 of the remaining AppExchange entities are built by partners. Of these vendor entities, some subset would normally be classified as true applications. (Please, do not misconstrue this as a poke at the vendors. They are exercising an opportunity, so Kudos to their efforts;-)) In addition, 75% of AppExchange’s most popular offerings share two things in common: they are made by salesforce.com and are free. While there is a certain “duh” factor associated with “free” and “popular”, one should not discount the fact that more valuable items that cost money are not outranking something of much lower value, even if it is free.
So I ask, where is the app in AppExchange? Is Apex their vehicle to allow for the permeation of the more traditional notion of “software functionality” into the AppExchange? Is their another player that can deliver something better? Only time well tell. My gut feeling is that some of these questions will be answered sooner rather than later.
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[…] SF.com seems to charge money for products to appear there, but it seems that the partners aren’t really making money themselves. SaaSblogs provides a detailed breakdown. If we look at this “ecosystem” of 350+ applications, what is the breakdown? What might a stricter taxonomy look like? I recently compiled a list of these 350+ applications (I came up with 343, but I may have missed 8+) to do a little investigation. I found some wonderful tidbits of information. Did you know that at the time I retrieved the data (week of October 2, 2006)… […]