By using ShareNow, the health care administration companies can access the Evolution sales brochures and details whenever they are needed, instead of having to request e-mailed documents. "For a company like ours, the whole on-demand [availability] part of this has been a great differentiator" for Evolution's debit card compared to competitors, Herron said. "Without adding people or hardware, this is helping us [handle] our new projected growth."

Eric Hoffert, CEO of South Orange, N.J.-based ShareMethods, said ShareNow was originally created as an on-demand stand-alone product, but was re-engineered with the Salesforce.com application programming interface (API) when that was offered in early 2004. ShareMethods was one of the first vendors to post an application to AppExchange when the portal debuted, he said.

Two versions of ShareNow are available. The AppExchange version is available on a subscription basis starting at US$25 per month for full users or $15 for read-only access; The ShareFree version is a free, limited-use version for up to five users and up to 50MB of storage.

Geoffrey Bock, an analyst with San Francisco-based Collaborative Strategies, said ShareNow fills a useful niche for many small- to medium-sized businesses. "They enable you to maintain context and the ability to be in one application and get access to what you need without having to drop down to the file [names]," he said. "I, as the end user, have an environment that I understand and the application knows how to reach out and communicate with this other remote stuff and get me what I need. That's what gives it its power."