Today we saw the first focus group convene, where Jim Yu of the platform product management group hosted an afternoon session to discuss some ideas we have for upcoming features for the AppExchange and Apex platform.

It was interesting to see the interaction between some of our closest partners and our product management team.  Gone are the days of mock characters depicting personas of your target customer. Profiles are old school.  The new school is talking to active customers, iterative development based on current needs.  Our incubator partners have a vested interest in the development of the Apex platform, and make for the best "voice of the customer".  Our incubator partners have now been elevated to the distinction of "extended family' - trusted advisors in our quest to deliver the first on demand platform for enterprise solutions.

As we interviewed the partners to find out how they were using some of the development features of the platform, it was enlightening to see how these talented developers had thought out of the box in delivering their solutions to customers all around the world.  Through candid dialog, we were able to test some of our design concepts and gain insights into what is really needed to make developers and partners successful going forward.

After the focus group, we kicked off a networking event where the PM team and the core development team behind the AppExchange met with the incubator partners and AppExchange partner teams.  It is not surprising to see that many of us are old friends from prior employers, and share a passion for pushing what is possible in the software-as-a-service world.  This is the first of many round table discussions to come.