“We are now in the era of Cloud 2 where social networking has overtaken email,” declared Salesforce.com’s Marc Benioff as he unveiled a new computing paradigm and the beta of its Chatter corporate messaging system.
Benioff said the first phase of cloud computing was about leveraging technologies that were low cost, fast and easy to use on your desktop. Cloud 2 represents the next generation of cloud computing, one that is inherently social, collaborative and delivers real-time access to data and information across new mobile devices.
To meet the overwhelming demand for social enterprise apps, and to accelerate the shift to Cloud 2, Salesforce.com has extended the Salesforce Chatter private beta program to more than 500 companies, including customers like Enterasys Networks and Saatchi & Saatchi.
In addition, the company launched the AppExchange 2, with the ChatterExchange, a new category for social enterprise applications.
“We are in the era of Cloud 2, where social networking use has surpassed e-mail, Facebook and YouTube use have outpaced search and new mobile devices like the iPad are creating entirely new ways to interact with information,” Benioff, said.
“With today’s announcement, Salesforce.com is advancing the shift to Cloud 2, where productivity gains are going to come from real-time collaboration available on any device.
“We’ve seen the future of enterprise software, and it looks more like Facebook on the iPad than Yahoo on the PC.”
Benioff said that companies of all sizes and industries have realized that the cloud computing model can deliver tremendous success – it is low cost, fast and easy to use.
With the rise of Facebook, Google and Twitter, companies are realising there is a smarter way to harnesses the power of the social networking services made popular by the consumer Web. Salesforce.com accelerates the move to the next cloud computing paradigm, Cloud 2, with Chatter.
“The best innovations from the consumer Web are moving to the enterprise forcing software to evolve,” said Denis Pombriant, principle, Beagle Research.
“The next decade will see demands for more sustainable business processes and cloud computing will meet the challenge by continuing to tilt away from the desktop and on-premise infrastructure, toward location independent computing that accesses data in the cloud on any mobile device.”
Chatter is the first social enterprise collaboration solution with profiles, real-time feeds and status updates for not only people, but apps and data become social as well.
Salesforce.com has announced that the Chatter beta program has been extended to more than 500 customers due to overwhelming demand. Later this year, all 72,500 salesforce.com customers will receive Chatter at no additional charge, making their deployments immediately social.
“Saatchi & Saatchi is beta-testing Chatter and we love it,” said Brand DuBose, management director, Saatchi & Saatchi.
“Chatter revolutionises the way our geographically dispersed teams can collaborate and boost productivity from anywhere.
“With Chatter, our people can change the game by sharing critical information, insights, and best practices to ensure that our biggest ideas and best work are implemented in real-time,” DuBose said.
By John Kennedy
