The AppExchange Blog - AppExchange Incubators

• AppExchange Incubator 2.0: Announcing the Native Appcelerator!

  Clara Shih Sep 26, 2007

  Well, what's next? The next phase of the incubator program, the Native Appcelerator, will focus on cultivating native platform applications built on Force.com. Appcelerator participants will have even greater flexibility, access, and support across their product lifecycle and go-to-market plan.

  • Embed your team. Participants will no longer be limited to one cube per company. Accepted ISVs have the choice of embedding an individual, their product team, or their entire company in our world-class facility.
  • Design and develop like we do. Appcelerator companies will have the opportunity to collaborate closely with salesforce.com product management teams, including access to our usability labs and customer focus groups that are renowned in the industry.
  • Fund your idea. The Native Appcelerator will receive special access to the newly formed AppExchange Venture Network investor consortium. Our corporate development team will facilitate introductions and relationship-building.
  • Join us in pioneering Platform as a Service. Be part of the first wave of native apps launched to our customer community. Native Appcelerator companies will be promoted at the forefront of this incredible technology and breakthrough new model where we are investing most heavily.

  Two companies from our charter incubator class have already joined: Apttus, whose on-demand contract management solution we featured during May's Platform Edition webinar, and Appirio, which has decided to move their entire company into our facility.

  As customers, the Native Appcelerator means two, very exciting things for you-- first, you can apply to send your product team, IT folks, or whomever you see fit to work onsite alongside our developers and product teams even if the apps they are developing are for your company's internal use only. Second, you will soon see the next wave of innovation on the AppExchange -- native to Force.com and therefore faster, more reliable, more secure, and better integrated with your CRM and entire On Demand system.
  
  

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• AppExchange Incubator Report Card

  Clara Shih Sep 26, 2007

  Just one semester into the AppExchange incubator program in our new San Mateo, California facility, we have exciting progress to report on our charter class participants:

  • Tremendous innovation. Over twenty-five applications spanning multiple segments and categories have been developed and listed on AppExchange by incubator ISVs. More are on the way!
    
  • Unrivaled access. Incubator participants have had special access to weekly colloquia and networking events (eg, meetings with salesforce.com product managers), and have received over $40M in venture funding. 
    
  • Collaboration and community. Thanks to the natural synergies arising from physical collocation, incubator companies have self-organized to form valuable relationships, both formal (eg, joint product development, reseller arrangements, services, etc) and informal (eg, technical product forums, ad hoc discussion groups, etc). There are already over 2,500 joint customers!

  
  Thanks and congratulations to the 32 charter class incubator companies (some, in stealth mode, are not listed): Appirio, Avankia, BackWeb, Bluewolf, Business Objects, Centive, Clicktools, Cloud9 Analytics, Convenos, DomoDomain, DreamFactory, Eloqua, iNeoMarketing, InsideView, InvisibleCRM, Kailea Networks, NextNine, OpenAir, OpSource, Pervasive, Portaga, Ribbit, Right90, RingLead, StakeWare, TwoConnect, VerticalResponse and Xactly.

  Keep up the great work!

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• Latest from the AppExchange Incubator: Cool new Google Gadgets from Appirio!

  Clara Shih Jun 1, 2007

  Kudos to Appirio for four new, very cool (and free!) gadgets on the AppExchange which enable you to access important real-time Salesforce data from your iGoogle personal home page.

  Check it out- I just installed Sales Sleuth and Case Watcher (I love the AppExchange - it took me less than 1 minute to install both). Sales Sleuth lets you quickly look up any account, contact, opportunity, case or task. Case Watcher shows you the top two open cases in your org.

  

  There's also Opportunity Knocks and Task Watcher. And, Appirio just joined the Googe Enterprise Program.

  Good stuff, Narinder and Chris. Keep it coming!

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• Unveiling Incubator 2.0 - accelerating AppExchange innovation for customers

  Clara Shih Apr 25, 2007

  At a private media and analyst event held yesterday in our San Mateo AppExchange incubator, we unveiled the charter incubator class of 32 partners and some of their early wins after just four months. It was a debutante ball of sorts.

  The message of the day? Salesforce is the business and technology platform that is empowering the next generation of On Demand. The Salesforce platform and language let developers rapidly build new apps and functionality. StakeWare (one of the incubator partners), for instance, rewrote their sustainability risk management application in Salesforce in just a few weeks. This same application had taken them over four months of development time in Java. That's not even counting the many months and dollars it would require to set up all the servers, sharing infrastructure, web services APIs, and payment and billing infrastructure in order to then deploy it to real customers.

  In yesterday's BusinessWeek article, entrepreneur Ross Mayfield describes it as "a commune for nerds."

  For customers, what this means is more innovation much more rapidly. The incubators accelerate the pace at which the AppExchange ecosystem can target the needs of new markets, new verticals, and new regions. Case in point: neither of the two on-stage demos we had (Appirio and Kailea Networks) were related to CRM.

  Moreover, customers will start to be able to attend tech talks, demo days and networking events at the San Mateo facility and other incubators being planned around the world. The AppExchange Incubators are like an "Apple Store for On Demand," a physical place where customers, partners, media, VCs, anyone curious can go to touch and feel the future of software. See you soon at an incubator near you!

  Join us in welcoming the freshman class:

  

  Alphabetically: Appirio, Avankia, BackWeb, Bluewolf, Business Objects, Centive, Clicktools, Cloud9 Analytics, Convenos, DomoDomain, Dreamfactory, Eloqua, iNeoMarketing, InsideView, InvisibleCRM, Kailea Networks, NextNine, OpenAir, OpSource, Pervasive, Portaga, Right90, RingLead, StakeWare, TwoConnect, VerticalResponse and Xactly.

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