OEM: A new mantra

San Francisco-based Salesforce.com has announced the release of its new AppExchange OEM Edition. Billed as “the industry’s first on-demand OEM offering,” AppExchange OEM Edition is an on-demand platform designed to be appropriate for start-up companies and established ISVs alike to develop new on-demand applications that “reach well beyond CRM.” Salesforce.com chairman / CEO Marc Benioff stated that the advantage of the new product lay in the fact that “applications built on the AppExchange platform can exist completely separate from CRM and can be distributed directly by salesforce.com partners.”

AppExchange OEM Edition includes the complete AppExchange on-demand platform, including the common user interface; a single security and data sharing model; AppExchange API; the AppExchange Database; AppExchange Builder for customization and integration; custom tabs and objects; and the Salesforce.com service delivery platform. The OEM Edition does not include Salesforce.com CRM applications, however.

The program is available for $25 per user per month. Salesforce.com PR also related the news that four partners have taken on the AppExchange OEM Edition: real-estate industry solutions provider Remend, Inc.; Agile software life cycle management support solutions provider Rally Software Development; loan officer web platform provider MyLoanBiz; and on-demand software systems customization and integration technology provider Dreamfactory. MyLoanBiz is a brand new firm whose foundation was announced at the same Appforce conference in which the OEM Edition was launched, and is built entirely on the AppExchange OEM Edition.

A few statistics were divulged as well. Calling the product an “overwhelming success,” Salesforce.com representatives stated that withn its first 120 days, AppExchange had over 8,600 customer installations of some 250-plus applications. AppExchange has delivered 122,000 “test drives” since last year’s beta-test release date of September 12.