Salesforce.com to host corporate mashups

Salesforce.com on Monday is expected to announce a way move data between different applications using its online development platform.

At the company's first developer conference, executives will introduce Salesforce SOA, an extension to its Apex programming language that allows developers to integrate different applications via Web services protocols. Salesforce will host and run the custom-written integration code.

People can already write mashups that run within a browser, such as an application that displays customer information from Salesforce's sales application on a Web mapping service.

Salesforce SOA, by contrast, does the integration between programs on the server, which allows for more sophisticated scenarios, said Adam Gross, vice president of developer relations at Salesforce.com.

A mashup could, for example, let someone display and manipulate customer information on a Google Web-based spreadsheet.

Salesforce has modified Apex so that people can handle the files, called Web Services Description Language (WSDL) files, that allow programmers to get information from Web services, Gross said.

Both Apex and Salesforce SOA are expected to be generally available in December.

Separately, Salesforce on Monday announced AppExchange Venture Network, a program to encourage entrepreneurs and investors to write applications that run on Salesforce's application platform.