News & Updates
Is Salesforce an AAAS?
By James MacTavish / December 17, 2014

With hindsight, we can now see how visionary Salesforce.com was in 2005 (yep, almost a decade ago) when they launched AppExchange, not least of which because it wasn't really about apps as we know them today, but was more of a SaaS marketplace and matchmaking platform, enabling third party partners of Salesforce to show their wares and find buyers.A decade on, the word “app” has been monopolized by downloadable and mobile apps, but Salesforce’s platform is still called AppExchange and there are a growing number of SaaS and PaaS companies looking to emulate Salesforce’s proven model. In effect they are creating “App as a Service” or “Application as a Service” business models – maybe I have just created a new acronym, AaaS. What’s driving this?Let’s consider a typical platform company like Salesforce (and there are thousands, delivering cloud solutions to all manner of industries and use cases). They start off quite closed, then a lead customer or lead partner asks them to open up their platform via a couple of APIs so that the partner can get access to some platform data or capability and do something custom. An extension or add-on to the core platform is created, and everyone is happy for a while. Then the process is repeated, and before you know it, there are quite a few disparate APIs opened up, and quite a few third parties leveraging them. So the PaaS company introduces a more formal API program, where they begin policing who uses the APIs and how they use them, they often introduce fees for access, and they approve the resultant extensions to their platform. Along with this, they also introduce a mini developer program to encourage more third parties to innovate on their platform.Guess what they then find? A lot of the innovation and value in their ecosystem is being created by third parties, and those third parties are making lots of money. What concerns the platform provider is that their customers are going directly to the developers to get their apps, extensions, plug-ins, add-ons and services … yep, they are being bypassed. In parallel their customers are telling them that they find it hard to find the right add-ons to meet their needs resulting in “Wouldn't it be great if there was a central marketplace for all these value-adds”.That’s where Salesforce got to in 2005, and since then we have seen many other SaaS companies come to the same realization. There’s a great short article on the history and success of AppExchange here. What’s this “app exchange” concept all about then?Going back to my original point, most of the time these aren't apps in the more familiar sense of downloadable executable pieces of software, they are more like value-added capabilities that enhance the platform. Here at AppCarousel we provide app stores, app management and app ecosystem solutions for all manner of companies, and I can tell you that the terminology varies from one to the next. They use:
- Extensions
- Assets
- Add-ons
- Plug-ins
- Assets
- Executables
- Modules
- Entitlements
- Applications
- and of course apps
- Mobile App Management (MAM): A service that allows enterprises to control access to internally developed apps on both BYOD (bring your own device) and CYOD (choose your own device)
- App development: Enterprises can leverage Salesforce’s app development tools or use their own resources to build apps
- Analytics: Built-in analytics allows the app store administrator to monitor and track the most popular apps according to usage
- Accessibility: Users can access the app store from the web or mobile, giving enterprises the power to operate internal functions remotely
- Potential external-facing app stores: Salesforce could offer Store Builder for external-facing use and could enable plug-in payment options so that app store owners (i.e. enterprises) can monetize their app stores
Your app solution is waiting to be built. What are you waiting for?
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