It's no surprise that Salesforce.com is pretty much the only game in town for on-demand CRM, and their ecosystem of partners have greatly benefited from their ability to provide a reliable and extensible distribution platform.
When Salesforce announced a 10% partner royalty program for AppExchange leads, many partners were forced to closely examine the value of this partnership. Some partners had clear objections, while others (such as us) signed up for the program on good faith that the obvious obstacles would be ironed out along the way.
The upside potential seemed great. www.AppExchange.com would become the eBay of online business apps and both Salesforce and Partners would mutually grow and prosper. But Salesforce's 10% royalty fee was decidedly larger than eBay's 5.25% fee and the requirement for partners to pay for certified listings and positioning made the eBay metaphor even harder to digest.
For a company that differentiates itself on a "No Software" mantra, the AppExchange appeared to be implementing a decidedly "old school" partner program taken right out of the Enterprise Software playbook.
But apparently Salesforce is listening. I received this email just yesterday:
Due to feedback from our partner community, we are phasing out the 10% revenue share requirements for AppExchange partners. On Aug 9th, we will hold a webinar to announce updated partner program tiers as well as new program benefits and services.
So, we'll see. This is the start of a positive dialogue. For those who are interested, the webinar registration form is here. I encourage all potential Salesforce partners to attend, as the Platform-as-a-Service model is here to stay and a healthy relationship with Salesforce is clearly required if you want to participate in the future of business software.