Salesforce's steady growth over the years can be tied in part to its success in establishing a partner ecosystem of ISVs and systems integrators building extensions and full-blown applications on its development platform.
Periodically Salesforce has tweaked its partner program model, and the latest iteration has now arrived, with some significant changes. Salesforce is changing the program's name from ISV Partner Program to AppExchange Partner Program, but it's more than just a branding shift.
For one, it wants to quickly attract more startups and ISVs to the AppExchange through more attractive pricing, while giving existing ones a reason to stick around longer. Going forward, all new AppExchange partners will be charged 15 percent of their product's net revenue, a 40 percent reduction from the previous, long-standing 25 percent PNR. Existing partners can get the lower pricing when they renew their contracts.
Salesforce is also offering a pricing structure based on a partner's Trailblazer score, which is calculated by metrics such as customer reviews, how current the product is on Salesforce technology, and the number of certifications and lessons completed through the company's Trailhead learning platform.
Additional new aspects of the program include an AppExchange onboarding wizard for partners, additional tools for payments beyond credit cards, and a dashboard that provides access to Trailblazer scores and other information.
Salesforce is also readying DX, a new developer experience that will deliver an improved IDE (integrated development environment) and tools aimed at making individual coders more productive, such as the ability to spin up personal scratch environments where code can be tested and then merged into team-level sandboxes. DX is now in pilot and expected to be generally available later this year.
Some 3,000 applications now sit on the AppExchange. Along with the revamped partner program, Salesforce is hoping to inject more interest in its platform through a new $100 million venture fund aimed at startups who want to build on it. The funding follows a similar move last year when Salesforce launched the Lightning Fund.
Analysis: Welcome Changes for All Salesforce Stakeholders
The new partner program has clearly been designed with a good degree of thought, as it provides benefits for all three types of Salesforce stakeholders: Salesforce itself, partners and customers.
Salesforce may take a lower cut of AppExchange partner revenue going forward, but such a dramatic reduction should help drive enough new business to make up the gap and more. Partners in turn get the same benefits of being part of the Salesforce ecosystem while keeping more of the pie.
Finally, the introduction of incentives tied to Trailblazer scores will get more partners using Salesforce's latest technologies while driving higher quality standards. That scenario that can only help customers, particularly ones who are interested in surrounding their core Salesforce applications for sales and marketing with AppExchange offerings, but have been hesitant to make the investment.
Not that Salesforce hasn't already found success with the AppExchange. Nearly 90 percent of Fortune 100 companies now have at least one AppExchange app installed, and 65 percent of all customers have multiple apps installed, according to a statement.
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