One partner, DreamFactory Software, which makes customisation and integration technology for hosted software, is using Multiforce to extend the more basic CRM features built into Salesforce's offerings.
"The components they offer made it easy for us to assemble an application that does something entirely different than what Salesforce does, so, you can understand why there's a great amount of benefit in this for us, and for them," said Eric Rubin, president of DreamFactory. He said his company's new product, dubbed DreamTeam, was built in only six weeks using Multiforce.
In addition, Rubin said the exposure to potential clients throughout Salesforce's customer base made the decision to embrace Multiforce an easy one.
Where's the payoff?
That may help attract partners. But one thing about the new Multiforce plan remains unclear, said analysts: How will Salesforce drive revenue using the customer and ISV-built applications?
"Salesforce still needs to iron out the business model, and it must give developers enough of a revenue opportunity while getting something for themselves," said Sheryl Kingstone, analyst with Boston-based Yankee Group.
"Companies might want to build complimentary applications using Salesforce, but they won't always need Salesforce CRM for all users, and that could be a potential hiccup. (Salesforce) has to figure out a way to price effectively around that challenge."
Benioff said the initial benefit to his company will include the sale of more licenses to existing customers, and further proof to offer potential buyers that the company is more than just an application services provider.
"We can make customers succeed if we provide the tools for rapid development and for deployment within a trusted, on-demand environment," Benioff said in an e-mail interview. "Multiforce will demonstrate how software as a service is not just a more successful way to deploy applications but also how the model fundamentally changes the game in building applications."
Another goal is to encourage CRM naysayers haunted by stories of failed installations to reconsider, Benioff told ZDNet Australia sister publication CNET News.com. The thinking is that if companies are offered more control over just how their applications are designed, they'll ultimately rely even more on those more valuable custom-built applications, he said.
At the heart of Benioff's new strategy is the idea that companies with deep industry knowledge will have more success creating their own specialised programs than Salesforce could ever put together. Unlike rivals such as Siebel Systems, which already offers six different flavours of its own hosted CRM tools for customers in different vertical industries, Salesforce is betting customers, and more importantly ISVs, will clamour to build their own applications.
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