Chatter offers real-time communication, work for businesses
Getting people on the same page, whether for work or personal endeavours, is often a difficult proposition. A collaboration tool from Salesforce.com hopes to change that.
Chatter is a “real-time collaboration” service that will connect employees that are working in teams. The cloud-based communication tool forms somewhat of an internal social network, allowing for secure communication on projects that feature team members in different departments or offices. Chatter is the intersection of Facebook, Twitter, and Salesforce, designed to refocus networking into a project-oriented environment.
Users are able to post or read status updates from co-workers. Rather than call Joe and ask him where he is on that Company A project, you can see his update and know “Working on Comp. A report for 10 AM meeting” and know that he’s wrapping things up. Others can then add comments to offer advice or share new information. Chatter also shows shared documents in the feed, so you can see a draft of the report or submit your portion of the project in one place that everyone can access.
Chatter features applications, groups, and filters, which gives control of which projects or people are promoted and displayed as most relevant. It even integrates with other networks like Facebook or Twitter, which makes it ideal for monitoring clients or co-worker activities without forcing users into the closed network. This may not be an ideal solution for every business, but current Salesforce users looking for an integrated collaboration tool may find value in it.
Chatter is a free service for subscribers to Salesforce CRM or Force.com. There’s also a per-user option of $15 should a company opt to only sign-up for Chatter. Mobile applications will be available in the coming months, with the iPad, iPhone, and BlackBerry being the first platforms adopted. An Android version will be delivered next year.
Using an Intranet with communication tools can range from Lotus Notes to very simple cost effective collaboration tools using Microsoft Office. The ROI on paying a monthly fee, cost per user or one time buy with upgrades has to be taken into account. The other factor here is keeping control of your data cloud computing has its advocates who do not seem to see the deeper issues of security. Companies who sell cloud-based services can be bought and sold, policies change and so may the country of origin. Global and domestic corporate spying is a multi billion dollar business and if you are blind to that fact your data is more at risk than you may know.
Perhaps before propagating a software or service one should know who is behind it. otherwise I have some really cool investments for you to consider.
Force.com is owned by Network Solutions LLC who have a rather failing past being accused of outright fraud in 2008 and then breaches into their servers in 2009 putting credit card users information at risk.
http://www.pcnewsdigest.com/2008/03/network-solutions-scam.html
http://news.cnet.com/8301-27080_3-10296817-245.html
Stop trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt. I would guess that you either work for or are a fanboy of a competitor to Salesforce.com, or have a superiority or inferiority complex and are trying to justify your own existence by being argumentative.
Your ROI argument is foolish, because Chatter is a feature that has been added to a CRM platform. It increases the value proposition of the Salesforce.com application itself, as well as the Force.com platform in general. While there is a chatter-only option available to consumers, it likely exists as an entry point for the company to entice new customers onto its other offerings (such as CRM)and from a business standpoint makes perfect sense.
As far as your ranting about Network Solutions LLC goes, Force.com is -NOT- owned by that company. They aren’t even an investor. You can see every single entity with a stake in the company here:
http://www.dailyfinance.com/company/salesforce-com-inc/crm/nys/institutional-ownership
Network Solutions LLC is simply the domain registrar for Salesforce.com, which basically means that they are responsible for setting up the web address for the companies websites. Saying that they own Salesforce.com is like saying the post office owns my house…
As well, your two “facts” about Network Solutions LLC are presented in a grossly misleading fashion. You accuse the company of fraud, but the link you provide doesn’t even remotely mention anything that could be considered fraud. The practices described are at best sneaky, but they are legal, and I once again reiterate that they have nothing to do with the Salesforce.com company or their business.
In addition, it links to a blog that is probably your own, because the article it brings up is written with the same attention to FUD and commitment to blowing things out of proportion. Very lame way to try and increase your hit count. Even if it isn’t your blog, why are you quoting something that some nobody wrote on blogspot as real fact? Could you not find yourself a credible news source?
Your second argument about Salesforce.com being unsecure is also irrelivant for two reasons:
1) It was a breach of Network Solutions, LLC’s customers security, which is, once again, NOT Salesforce.com. If Salesforce had registered their domain with a credit card, they might have been a VICTIM of this breach, but otherwise, they would have had absolutely no involvement of any fashion in it
2) For any web-connected business (or consumer for that manner), occasional security breaches are inevitable. No security is bulletproof. What matters is how the company minimizes these occurrences, and how they handle them when they do happen. Per the article that you linked to on cnet, they seem to not only have been in full compliance with best practices and the law, but have gone the extra mile to protect their customers by providing them with free credit monitoring as a preventative measure.
I’d recommend that you stop trying to get attention by being flamboyant on the internet. If you really need to fill an empty hole in your soul by spewing bile, at least pick a topic that’s true, and do some research on it. At the very least, don’t link to articles that disprove everything you say…
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