Salesforce Offers Private AppExchange Option to Business Customers

Salesforce.com (CRM) is taking its Salesforce AppExchange to another level by offering a private version to businesses looking to customize their own app store for employees.

Salesforce Private AppExchange, generally available on Friday, will enable businesses to build a private, customized app store that lets them manage and distribute custom, mobile, Internet and desktop apps, Salesforce said.

AppExchange Director of Marketing Sara Varni spoke with Talkin’ Cloud on the enterprise issues that her company’s Private AppExchange is designed to fix.

“There was no one central place you could go to find all the apps being used in your company,” she said, “and the process was painful,” pointing out that employees would have to log a ticket and wait for IT to respond.

To combat these challenges, Salesforce designed Private AppExchange to assist businesses with building their own corporate app store to manage and distribute any app, across any device. Additionally, IT can customize the app experience for every employee based on their specific job function.

Varni said Salesforce ran a beta version of the solution to some of the company’s top customers and incorporated feedback into the finalized product.

One feature not included in the final solution, however, was a way for employees to requests apps from IT, Salesforce Senior AppExchange Product Management Director Ryan Ellis told Talkin’ Cloud.

“We don’t have that capability today, but that is something that we have heard from our customers during the beta feedback period,” he said. “That is something we would like to add in the future.”

Ellis did note, though, that Chatter, designed to deliver a custom intranet that connects employees to the content, people, and apps they need anywhere, from any device, offers employees an alternative way by allowing them to reach out to IT to collaborate on apps.

While managed services providers (MSPs) cannot leverage the Salesforce Private AppExchange for customers at this moment in time, Varni said Salesforce has explored the idea, and it’s something the company “might build at a later date.”

Varni said Salesforce will be announcing more solutions at its annual Dreamforce conference.

Salesforce reached two million Salesforce AppExchange installs at the end of September.