 "Salesforce Chatter Brings Social Computing To Enterprises")
Enterprise cloud computing firm Salesforce.com has unveiled Salesforce Chatter , a new enterprise collaboration application and social development platform. Salesforce Chatter will leverage the social networking models made popular by the consumer Web, allowing any company to collaborate in real time with a secure, private social network for their business. Content, applications and people will now have profiles, feeds and groups, enabling them to be connected. In addition, developers will now be able to use the Salesforce Chatter platform to build social enterprise applications, and all native Force.com applications will instantly become social.
Salesforce Chatter – Real-Time Collaboration with Content, Apps and People
Salesforce Chatter will enable companies to securely collaborate in real time with the help of:
* Profiles: Just like profiles on popular consumer-oriented social networking sites, Salesforce Chatter profiles include things like contact information, area of expertise, work history and a photo. Profiles will allow employees to quickly identify and connect with colleagues, who have the information and expertise they need to get their questions answered, expanding employee networks and increasing productivity.
* Status Updates: With status updates, employees will be able to keep everyone informed of what they are working on. Instead of using Intranets or participating in endless e-mail chains, conference calls or meetings, employees can broadcast their latest status with real-time updates in Salesforce Chatter.
* Feeds: Salesforce Chatter’s feed will stream relevant, real-time status updates, not only from people, but also from content and apps. Content will notify users in the Salesforce Chatter feed when new or updated content is available. Apps will join the conversation by posting when there is a change in status, like when an opportunity closes or a case is escalated in Salesforce CRM. The real-time nature of Salesforce Chatter’s feed will ensure that employees are accessing the most current information possible and have the ability to filter results to gain the most insight.
* Groups: In business today, people frequently work on a number of teams focused on specific projects or objectives. The groups feature in Salesforce Chatter will allow employees to easily create their own groups within Salesforce Chatter and share updates, content and more, making it easy to collaborate with groups at work.
* Social Apps: With Salesforce Chatter, business apps will have the ability to talk to users through Chatter’s feed. Relevant updates from the Sales Cloud, Service Cloud and Custom Cloud, like a new lead or an alert that inventory is low, will be represented on Chatter’s feed. For the first time, enterprise apps will be part of the real-time conversation, and employees will be connected with the information they need to close more deals, satisfy their customers and grow their bottom line.
* Social Content: Business content, like documents, spreadsheets and presentations, will be able to alert the entire company when any updates have been made through Salesforce Chatter’s feed, just as people are alerted when new photos are posted on popular social networks. With Salesforce Chatter, content will be a part of the enterprise conversation, adding the context needed to ensure more effective communications and decisions.
* Social Sharing Model: When sharing and collaborating on information in an enterprise, it is essential that the right employees have access to the right data. Salesforce Chatter leverages Force.com’s multi-tenant sharing model, enabling companies to decide which employees have access to what information.
* Twitter: Salesforce Chatter will enable users to filter the most relevant Twitter feeds into their Chatter app. For example, a user can set-up a Twitter search for a competitor and automatically stream the real-time results into Chatter. The integration will keep users informed in real-time with the most relevant content from Twitter.
* Facebook: Employees will be able to pull information from their Facebook profiles to auto populate their Salesforce Chatter profiles.
* AppExchange: Now any native app built on the Force.com platform can be social, streaming updates to Salesforce Chatter’s feed and effectively joining the conversation.
* Mobile: As with all salesforce.com apps, Salesforce Chatter will be available on any BlackBerry, Windows Mobile device or iPhone. Companies and their employees will be able to take the conversation with them, regardless of where they are located.
Pricing and Availability
Salesforce Chatter is currently scheduled to become available in calendar year 2010. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available.
Salesforce Chatter will be included in all paid editions of Salesforce CRM and Force.com. A new Chatter Edition will be sold for $50 per user per month and will include Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce Content and Force.com.