It has long been a dream of technology providers to sell more specific hardware packages to business buyers. The idea of a technology appliance is that instead of buying a computer from vendor X, an operating system from vendor Y, and a software package from vendor Z, and then hiring a consultant or integration vendor to plug all together and make it work and maintain it and keep it working, you just buy one box from one vendor that is preconfigured to do a certain task but is not general purpose at all.

Cast Iron Technologies is having some apparent success with its Salesforce.com Integration Appliance, a tool that you plug into your network and configure to connect Salesforce to whatever systems you have in house.

With more companies outsourcing their CRM to Salesforce, Cast Iron should continue to do well.

Curt Finch is the CEO of Journyx, a project timesheet software vendor in Austin, Texas.