"Can we modify the Salesforce code to fit our business needs?" is a prevailing question asked by Salesforce customers, and today the big announcement is "Yes".
Apex is a new programming language integrated with Salesforce.com that gives organizations and partners complete programmatic control over their database. When coupled with the AJAX toolkit, the results are astounding.
Mash-ups of Google Maps, D&B business info, credit reporting, Yahoo maps, warehouse databases, and Cisco telephony all seamlessly flowed together in an integrated, web-based, on-demand environment.
More than half of my technical wish list features are addressed in the next Winter '07 release and many Salesforce employees are on the floor, eager to listen to customer/partner feedback and improve their platform.
The name "Sales"force is really becoming outdated. The "Work"force vision is now in place as Apex enables the development of full financials, HR, ERP, and inventory functionality that extend beyond the front office.
Think of Apex as an object-oriented stored procedure language for their web database.
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