AppExchange Seminar in NYC

I spent most of Tuesday afternoon at the Salesforce.com AppExchange Seminar at the Hilton in midtown. Hung out most of the time with Jason Wood which was interesting and a lot of fun. I enjoyed talking software with him and I think it's safe to say we're both generally fans of AppExchange (with some reservations of course). Here's a bit of what I observed and some things I found interesting (not exhaustive by any stretch of the imagination):

• Walked in a bit late on a presentation by Morris Panner, CEO of OpenAir
• provider of professional services automation software
  
• a few random notes on this presentation since i came in late
• Generated a ton of leads since developing AppExchange solution
• 5X increase in the number of Salesforce.com customers interested in solution since launching AppExchange version
• Leads are extremely qualified
• 50% of leads are "active" deals or conducting detailed evaluation
• OpenAir is about a year into SFdC experience
• sales cycle is 60-180 days
• AppExchange helped them win 5 deals in first 60 days
• overcame objections around integration
• Increased global "presence" as 30% of leads are from outside US
• Salesforce.com has been helping them make contact with integrators overseas
  
• either just signed or in pipeline - Software AG
• 2700 seats
• "unimaginable opportunity for us"
• up against SAP
• The user experience matters
• UI leads to a "wow" factor
• AppExchange ratings matter (called it the "ebay effect")
• have a person in charge of managing their AppExchange presence
• SFdC is "straight forward" and "easy to work with"
• Initially no certificates or courses to take
• His developers say the API is easy to work with
• Gets harder as you build your product out
• Every quarter OpenAir spends equivilent of 1-2 weeks on the AppExchange product
• Customer requirements
• iterating "as you go"
• No full time engineer dedicated to AppExchange
• part of the integration persons responsibility
  
• Question from audience: aren't you worried about the API and your risk?
• Answer: structure of API is amenable to working together with SFdC

• First after lunch presentation by Steve Fisher, SVP of AppExchange & chairman of salesforce.com's Technology Architecture Committee
• showed a slide stating SFdC has 99.9% uptime. I don't think most customers can hold them to this as I understand that they dont' offer SLAs as standard operating procedure (some of the larger clients have likely negotiated this).
  
• Goal of the AppExchange platform is to leverage the investment they made in security, mult-tenancy and reliability
• One of the big lessons SFdC learned was to be transparent which is why they set up trust.salesforce.com. (Ok, then why not go ahead and offer SLAs too??)
• Two main things that make AppExchange platform work
• Query Optimization Engine (Salesforce.com built their own)
• b/c databases aren't any easy or fast way to retreive/store data in ways that SFdC wants to use it, they built the query optimizer
• Meta-data layer
• defines relationships between what customer sees and physical, real schema
• These two features/functions makes it feel "like customers have their own system."
• Salesforce.com "integrates well with other systems"
• Key: the standards-based Web Services API
  
• SQL-like syntax into the meta-data layer
• Allows for integration with SAP, Oracle, Siebel, Desktop, Mobile et al.
  
• Slide: "Mash up - the Business Web is Here"
• examples shown: Google Maps, Skype (initiate call right from SFdC), Google AdWords mgt including ROIs from Kieden which was pretty cool.
  
• "You get more stuff for free with AppExchange platform then with others e.g., .NET"
• Both presenters must have used the word free 70-80 times. He is NOT referring to the OEM version which is $25/mth/user.
• Here are a few of the things your get for "free" in SFdC, but evidently not in others: security & sharing model, API services, multi-language & multi-currency, UI services, mobile & offline, dashboard and workflow.
  
• 3 types of Apps
• Native
• Meta-data driven
• Custom objects
• Salesforce.com UI
• Examples: data apps, bug tracking, asset tracking
• Native Apps are "configured" more than "coded"
• Composite
• Lives on the client's server
• Leverages SFdC's data model
• Client
• End user need access SFdC application directly, but may be using a product like Outlook
• Sandbox
  
• development as a service
• Fully replicated production environment for dev/test
• Repeated several times that Salesforce.com wants ISVs to leverage the fact that they have solved a lot of hard problems around developing a scalable, stable platform

• Second Presentation by Adam Gross, Vice President Developer Marketing
• Asked how many in attendance were interested in developing for internal clients vs how many were ISVs looking to create Apps to re-sell.
  
• vast majority were ISVs
• Just caught the tail end of a dig against SAP; something about client/server in the 90s.
• Native Platform features
• Data
• Custom & standard objects
• CRUD & sharing
• Relationships
• Field (data) types
• Business Logic (workflow)
• Notifications (add a task)
• Alerts (Send an email)
• Assignement rules
• Pre- and post-save, validation rules
• User Interface (Metadata layouts)
• Layouts
• Custom Tabs
• Record Types
• Composite Platform features
• Data
  
• Composite - anything that uses the API
• SOAP web services API
• Object API as opposed to lower level data API
• Java & .Net objects
  
• API is hook into data side
  
• API will appear like a database - "lots of nouns & few verbs"
• enterprise vs. partners WSDL
• SOQL - (Sforce Object Query Language) similar to SQL
• DB replication
• External db
• Business Logic
  
• S controls
• hooks into UI
• lets you present apps that run on your own server appear in SFdC UI
• More on S Controls
• Two types: Hooks & Targets
• Hooks - referencing into Apps
• eg custom links, web tabs, image fields
  
• Targets - what is being invoked
• web controls