Earlier this week, Salesforce announced a set of enhancement and new partners on their AppExchange.  The firm is shifting away from Data.com and setting up an ecosystem of Lightning Data partners.

Salesforce is expanding the vision of the AppExchange to a “full blown ecosystem,” said Leyla Seka, EVP of AppExchange.  Along with Lightning Bolts and Data, the firm is also adding intelligent search results, personalized recommendations, industry collections, and Trailhead online learning tools associated with apps.  While 87 percent of customers have deployed apps, the new search and personalization tools will help customers “find the right solution and potentially solutions they didn’t know were available.”

With over 4,000 partner solutions, improved search and recommendations are necessary, particularly as they are merging the various AppExchange stores.  According to Salesforce VP of Marketing Leslie Tom:

“The way that the AppExchange worked was that there were separate stores, such as a separate store for apps, a store for components, and a separate store for consultants — so consultants stayed within their own store; you couldn’t put the consultants in line with the apps and components and the other tools that people are using. In the new AppExchange, we’ve combined all of those things together to show the power of the full ecosystem.”

Salesforce evaluated B2B and B2C marketplaces when redesigning the AppExchange.  “Our aspiration is to be as much like your consumer life as possible in buying your enterprise applications. [To that end, we] tried to bring as many of the best practices from marketplaces into the AppExchange as we could,” said Heather Conklin, Salesforce VP of product management.  “We’re really anchoring this around the idea of being the Salesforce store – the store you need for everything that you do with Salesforce. It’s not just about apps anymore; it’s really so much bigger than that.”

Three Part Series:

1. Lightning Data from SFDC
2. Lightning Data Partners
3. Salesforce AppExchange Redesign