Salesforce.com Temporarily Freezes AppExchange

Partners said Salesforce.com plans to freeze the site and close it to new entrants until the company goes live with its Winter '07 update in mid-January.

The news surfaced last week on a Salesforce.com consultant's blog, and an ISV partner participating in AppExchange later confirmed the freeze.

"They say it's just a holiday thing," the ISV partner said. "But I've also heard that they're trying to weed out a lot of these point solutions, so I think they may take the opportunity to do some pruning."

Salesforce.com didn't respond to requests for comment. The company plans to discuss AppExchange on Tuesday as part of a broader news announcement.

Salesforce.com launched AppExchange with great fanfare 15 months ago, touting it as an eBay-like platform for ISVs to sell their on-demand applications. However, the site functions more like a billboard than an applications bazaar. Most of the site's "most popular" downloads are functionality extensions such as new dashboards and integrations with Web sites like MapQuest, and about a quarter of AppExchange's 400 offerings are free modules built by Salesforce.com.