Salesforce.com is all set to kick start with $1 Million Hackathon. Scheduled for November 18-21 in San Francisco, with a target audience including developers, designers, and entrepreneurs, Dreamforce conference is showcasing a hackathon to inspire developers to build next generation mobile apps. To attract the talent, Salesforce.com has set the top winning prize at $1 million in cash, followed by five more alluring prize levels. The second-place finisher will receive $50,000, with $25,000 going to the third-place winner. Fourth and fifth place will get $10,000 and $5,000, respectively.

Developers who want to participate only in Hackathon can participate into the event for $99, where apps will be judged on innovation, business value, user experience, and use of Salesforce’s platform.

“It’s not going to be easy — $1 million is going to bring out the best of the best. So don’t wait until Dreamforce! You’re going to want to get started now. With Force.com, Heroku, ExactTarget Fuel, Mobile Services and more — you’ve got a killer array of platform technology to use,” Salesforce.com said in an announcement.

Developers taking part in the hackathon will have to face a lot of competition, with some 20,000 programmers expected to attend Dreamforce overall. Of course, as there is a grand prize amount involved. A “Hack Central” area will be open around the clock, supporting coders who want to work until the wee hours on their application.

Developers must build their app using Salesforce Platform, but will also be offered other developer tools and APIs that can be used in app creation, such as Mobile SDK for different operating systems, SOAP API, REST API, marketing and service cloud, Heroku, and many more.

To qualify in the hackathon, it is essential that an application should not have been previously released. The entries will be judged on four criteria counting 25 percent each: innovation, business value, user experience, and use of Salesforce.com’s platform.