Everything Apex
At Dreamforce '06, more than 600 developers heard the Apex announcement and were able to experiment a bit with the technologies themselves. But the rest of you may still be a bit behind the curve, so here’s a quick primer. The Apex platform brings you everything you’re already leveraging today, plus very soon with the Winter ’07 release, many of the things you’ve been asking for, including inline S-controls, relationship queries, outbound messaging, workflow and approvals, and more. And soon after that, we’ll roll out a developer preview of the biggest new technology, the Apex language. This new language will allow you to write code and run it on our servers.

For the full story, check out our own Apex page, a developer-oriented treasure trove of information on the Apex platform, with links to beta documentation and sample code, plus a demo and an overview presentation. You can also sign up for a free Apex Seminar, being held in select cities in upcoming weeks and months. And for the blogosphere’s coverage of Apex, check out the following:

Inspiration Abounds: Salesforce IdeaExchange
Savvy developers keep a close eye on the competition by monitoring the latest apps posted on the AppExchange directory. Now there’s a new site to watch as well, and this one can put you ahead of the curve instead of merely on top of it. Called IdeaExchange, it’s a new salesforce.com website designed to give our user community a place to voice their opinions and desires in regards to new features, functionality, and even AppExchange apps. For fresh ideas and the pulse of the user community, check out IdeaExchange. To post, just use your ADN log-in and password.

The First AppExchange Developer Book
Creating On-Demand Applications with AppExchange: An Introduction was published in October and released at Dreamforce ’06. Perfect for someone new to the platform, it covers the basics of the platform and walks the reader all the way through the process of creating a native application. It’s not yet widely available for purchase, but you can get your hands on a PDF by visiting this page.

AppExchange Incubator
The AppExchange Incubator program gives entrepreneurs the opportunity to kickstart their AppExchange businesses by working side-by-side with salesforce.com employees and AppExchange partners in special “incubator” office spaces. Participating developers will get office space and a full package of business services, including access to the Apex multi-tenant programming language and platform, technology infrastructure, product development, sales and marketing support, fundraising and business development assistance, and office space. Interested? Learn more.

About the Newsletter
Monthly, or not? The answer is monthly. We’ll be back on track with monthly issues in December, and you can look forward to continuing updates here on Apex. And as always, we’re interested in your feedback, so whether you have suggestions, criticism, or contributions, send them to adnnews@salesforce.com.