Salesforce.com reaches its Apex

Salesforce.com has told users that from early next year they will be able to use its own programming language to further customise their apps.

Salesforce.com customers, as well an independent software developers will have access to the code, called Apex, to do with what they like. And the company said it will even house these development teams in its own offices, for a fee, and host all the applications.

Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce.com, told delegates at Salesforce.com's user conference in San Francisco: "You can build any application and run it 100 per cent on our servers. We'll supply everything - data centres, servers, infrastructure. Just bring a laptop."

He said the major benefit of this approach will be to free up businesses from a lot of their infrastructure overhead. "This will let IT focus on innovation not infrastructure," he said, although there is no clear idea yet how the service will be priced.

Benioff told silicon.com that Salesforce.com may also use the wider Apex developer community as a test bed for future recruitment. Salesforce.com has already proven this 'try before you buy' policy, snapping up two companies developing apps for its AppExchange. "I think that we will continue to do so, as we have been doing, in a moderate way," said Benioff.

Rival on-demand CRM vendor NetSuite was quick to seize on any suggestion this represents an industry first, claiming the release of its own SuiteScript programming language in April retains that honour.

And renewing hostilities between the two companies, NetSuite also chose Benioff's big day to announce a plan to poach Salesforce.com customers. NetSuite is offering any switchers a set 'price for life' - meaning whatever they last paid Salesforce.com is what they will pay NetSuite for the full term they are a customer.

Becky Wettemann, analyst at Nucleus Research, was doubtful the offer will see an exodus from Salesforce.com's user base but said it could appeal to smaller customers.

She said: "NetSuite is great for what it is. It costs less than Salesforce.com but the switchers are typically going to be those at the low end who hit the next threshold [of Salesforce.com's pricing model] and realise how much it's going to cost."

Still on the subject of vendor spats, recent silicon.com Agenda Setter Benioff also took the opportunity to poke fun at rival Siebel.

Benioff told Dreamforce delegates his company has recently acquired Siebel's former headquarters. "It turns out it was empty and we got a real good deal," Benioff said.

Those will be the offices used to house the development teams from customers writing applications and customisations in Apex, at a cost to the developers of $20,000 per cubicle.