Salesforce have declared that social networks are no longer just for consumers; they're also for businesses and this new strategy is reflected in the new products and services delivered at their annual Dreamforce event in San Francisco.
Salesforce Touch
Salesforce Touch is a new Salesforce service designed for mobile developers. It's powered by HTML5, and expands on their native mobile strategy and is intended to help mobile application developers bring Salesforce to any mobile device—regardless of platform.
Salesforce Touch is included in all Salesforce editions as standard and will be available on iPad immediately, and is currently scheduled to be available on iPhone and Android the first half of 2013. The Salesforce Touch development Platform is available now and is included as part of Force.com. The Mobile SDK and other mobile components are available on Github:
Salesforce Chatterbox
Salesforce Chatterbox is a Salesforce version of Box and Dropbox, it's designed to be a simple and secure file sharing service that's accessible across multiple devices.
"Our customers have been asking us to create a file sharing service like Dropbox for the enterprise," said Nasi Jazayeri, EVP and GM of Salesforce Chatter, salesforce.com. "Now with Salesforce Chatterbox, employees will be able to securely access and share their files with the trust of Salesforce."
Salesforce Work.com
Work.com, is described by Salesforce as the world's first social performance management platform, effectively it's a virtual HR recognition and rewards scheme that operates in real-time. Part of the offer is a link with Amazon that allows employees to spend their recognition points directly with the sales platform.
Work.com is scheduled to be generally available in calendar Q4 of 2012 and pricing and packaging will be announced at general availability.
Desk.com
Announced back in January Desk.com is aimed at small businesses who need a help desk facility that links into social media networks and works on mobile devices as well as on the desktop. With Desk.com businesses can effectively carry a help desk in their pocket and answer customers on the go. It's designed to be easy to use and be up and running over a weekend.
Desk.com is generally available from this week and pricing starts at $49 (£30), per full-time agent per month, for unlimited usage. Flex pricing is also available for $1 (£0.62) per part-time agent per hour.
Chatter Communities
Chatter comes in two different flavours, Chatter Communities for Service and Chatter Communities for Partners. Chatter Communities for Service is aimed at bringing all the different forms of help and service within a business into one central portal. Giving customers a single place to go for answers regardless of where their inquiry originates.
While Chatter Communities for Partners is aimed at developers who want to create social networks to help connect companies with distributors, resellers, suppliers.
Chatter Communities is currently scheduled to be available in limited pilot in fall 2012, and currently scheduled to be generally available the second half of 2013. Pricing of Chatter Communities will be announced at general availability.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud:
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is Salesforce's attempt to provide everything a marketeer needs on one dashboard. It includes social listening, content, engagement, advertising, workflow, automation and measurement. The service links in to Buddy Media and Radian6 to provide the measurement.
Salesforce Marketing Cloud is available immediately and starts at $5,000 (£3,072) per month.
