European online business network XING will launch the XING Partner Ecosystem Wednesday, 16 business-related applications from XING and 13 new partners from seven countries to be launched step-by-step. The new applications can be installed free-of-charge and are available to all XING members.

The new tools will come from Huddle, Doodle, Dopplr, Deutsche Welle, MindMeister, SlideShare, spreed, travelload, Tungle, sueddeutsche.de, Wallstreet:Online, WELT ONLINE and ZCOPE.

XING CEO Stefan Gross-Selbeck said:

Working together with our partners, our overriding aim is to make XING even more valuable for our business community. With this goal in mind, the requests and requirements of our members will form the key focus of our efforts as we develop the XING Partner Ecosystem further and select new apps on an ongoing basis.

Chief product officer Jason Goldberg added:

The new XING Partner Ecosystem and the enabling of access to external developers carry immense potential for building on the user value our members can gain from XING. We will be collaborating with both international and regional partners, as we are aware, too, that most business is local for many of our users. Besides our members, our partners are of course also set to benefit greatly from offering their app to a community of more than 7.5 million users.