RareWire‘s 14-person team is ready to tap into an international business with more than 100,000 customers. The app-creation startup, based in Kansas City, recently announced native integration with Salesforce—a giant in cloud computing and customer relationship management—through its App Creation Studio.
The startup’s platform allows anyone to build native iOS and Android apps quickly, mainly targeting web developers and designers who don’t have a programming background. With this integration, Salesforce users will be able to create apps customized around the data they want to see, and how they want to interact with it. And while there are a number of programs—such as Skype—that tie into Salesforce as plug-ins, director of marketing Tyler Hillsman said this is the first integration of this type he’s aware of. The team sought out Salesforce for a simple reason.
“So many businesses use it,” Hillsman told Silicon Prairie News. “The more people building apps with our software, the better. We just want people using the platform. Our goal is to make it as easy as possible to build an app.”
Just as with all apps built through the App Creation Studio, users will only get charged if and when the app they’ve made gets published to the App Store. Hillsman said many corporations use the enterprise version of the App Store and the startup envisions much of the activity happening there. But truly, he said, the intent is to get RareWire’s tools in front of more people. The company—started in March 2010—has more than 4,500 registered users building apps as of now, and wants to continue to grow that number. It’s been funded through friends and family and grown through the apps it’s built for companies such as Boulevard Brewing Company, The Atlantic and Forever 21.
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RareWire already has integrated with Twitter, Facebook and Google Analytics, but this is the first true native integration with a company’s data—the first of more to come, Hillsman said.
A free class to prep for Compute Midwest Hackathon
RareWire and Salesforce are partnering up to sponsor the Compute Midwest Hackathon, put on by Kansas City IT Professionals, Oct. 26 and 27 at Google Fiber Space. Hackathon participants can win $500 and a free RareWire app license for a year—valued at $3000—for the best app using RareWire’s integration with Salesforce.
To inform those interested and prepare Hackathon participants, RareWire will host a two-night class Oct. 16 (tomorrow) and 17 from 6 p.m. to 8 p.m. at Think Big Partners in Kansas City. Anyone can sign up for free.
