Salesforce.com Chatter Goes Mobile
Salesforce.com (NYSE: CRM) today unveiled Chatter Mobile, giving Apple iPad and iPhone, Google Android and RIM BlackBerry users access to the popular business collaboration service.
Salesforce Chatter, which is something like Facebook for businesses, is already in use by 20,000 companies less than three months after becoming generally available.
Even before today's launch of Chatter Mobile, Salesforce had already enjoyed strong success with Apple and BlackBerry users. Salesforce CRM has more than 300,000 downloads from the Apple App Store and more than 100,000 from the BlackBerry App World, according to the company.
Chatter Mobile for the Apple iPad, iPhone and the new iPod touch, Google Android and RIM BlackBerry devices will let users monitor their Chatter feeds, including posts from colleagues and alerts from apps, post status updates and comment on relevant conversations from their mobile devices.
“Chatter Mobile means you can know what is happening in your entire enterprise, wherever you are,” stated Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “The combination of devices like the iPad or the new iPod touch with mobile apps like Chatter that push information to you in real-time are making the desktop obsolete.”
At the Cloudforce conference in London today where Chatter Mobile was announced, Benioff said Salesforce has found an interesting use for Chatter. The company monitors employee communications in the service to identify company leaders, according to ZDnet UK. For more on Salesforce's use of Chatter to monitor employees, see Salesforce.com Uses Chatter to Identify Top Employees.
Salesforce is billing Chatter Mobile as a second-generation cloud computing technology, “one that is inherently social, collaborative and delivers real-time access to data and information across new mobile devices.”
According to a December 2009 Morgan Stanley report, the number of people who access the Internet via mobile devices will surpass desktops and laptops by 2012.
Like Salesforce Chatter, Chatter Mobile will be available at no additional charge for Salesforce CRM and Force.com subscribers.
Chatter Mobile apps for BlackBerry, iPad, iPhone and the new iPod touch are scheduled to be available in late 2010. Chatter Mobile for Android devices is planned for the first half of 2011.
Paul Ferrill has been writing for over 15 years about computers and network technology. He holds a BS in Electrical Engineering as well as a MS in Electrical Engineering. He is a regular contributor to the computer trade press. He has a specialization in complex data analysis and storage. He has written hundreds of articles and two books for various outlets over the years. His articles have appeared in Enterprise Apps Today and InfoWorld, Network World, PC Magazine, Forbes, and many other publications.
