On-demand leader says it has the bases covered

Use of the Internet is having a tremendous impact on consumers' lives, yet that same level of impact has been missing from the business world, says Kendall Collins, a VP with Salesforce.com.

"As we looked at how Amazon, Google, and other Web sites revolutionized consumers' lives, we wondered why there was nothing like that for the business world," Collins says.

With that in mind, Salesforce.com created the AppExchange, an on-demand platform and directory.

The company's Salesforce suite of on-demand applications allows managing and sharing sales, customer support, marketing, and partner information on-demand. Use of AppExchange enables customers and partners to build applications, customize and integrate the Salesforce suite to meet business needs, and distribute and sell on-demand apps, Collins says. Current applications on AppExchange include finance, electronic signatures, document management, project management, credit and collections, mobile workforce management, and human resources.

To date, AppExchange offers more than 200 on-demand business apps. There have been more than 108,000 application test drives, and more than 7,000 application installations, Collins says.

Use of Salesforce.com's Unlimited Edition extends the on-demand model across the enterprise by deploying additional business apps from AppExchange.

"It's a response to customers' rapid expansion of Salesforce deployments across the enterprise by deploying applications from AppExchange," says Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com. "Unlimited Edition allows companies of any size to manage, organize, and share all of their business information on-demand."