Many in the enterprise software market—users and vendors alike—have been skeptical of Marc Benioff’s “Facebook Imperative.” Salesforce Chatter, the company’s socially-minded enterprise collaboration platform, was introduced at the Dreamforce 2009 conference in November, and went into private beta last month. When the platform went into beta, the Salesforce CEO took to blogs to disseminate the “Facebook Imperative”: the reasons he believes all enterprise software should be like Facebook.

Naturally, most detractors have responded by saying that if enterprise software doesn’t resemble Facebook, there is probably a good reason for it, and one major contention is that social integrations in enterprise productivity suites only create workplace distractions. Salesforce Chatter does admittedly have very Facebook-like features—the profile pages and news feeds look almost identical to the homepage iteration Facebook was running when Chatter was announced—but at the time, Benioff insisted that Chatter was a collaboration tool, and not a social one.

Indeed, the insistence on collaborating above socializing is likely the one to make Chatter and similar platforms enterprise mainstays. Everyone wants real-time functionalities in enterprise, but most are hesitant to think of it in terms of the social for fear of putting these products in the context of leisure. Still, despite condemnations of “Enterprise 2.0,” a plethora of collaboration platforms are jumping on the social bandwagon, and perhaps proving that collaboration suites need to get hip to the Facebook Imperative to survive.

One collaboration platform to make headlines recently was Socialcast’s, as they announced a new activity stream, an Outlook plugin, and an on-premise offering and a private cloud environment. Their name implies a non-enterprise product, and indeed Socialcast was not originally positioned as a workplace application. But this month, Socialcast announced they’re taking their activity-stream collaboration model and bringing it to the office.  With the release of their newest activity stream—dubbed “EASE,” short for “Enterprise Activity Stream Engine”—businesses can utilize Socialcast’s microblogging and social networking services. With their image overhaul, Socialcast is now targeting companies with over 100,000 employees, and is looking to give programs like IBM’s Lotus Software a run for their money.

To sweeten the deal for enterprises with enterprise-sized needs, Socialcast is offering their collaboration platform in the SaaS hybrid model. There are also handy integrations with Outlook, SharePoint, and mobile devices, but offering an on-premise component is being read as Socialcast’s move to make their platform enterprise-acceptable.

Another collaboration company to shift their focus to the enterprise is Socialtext. Socialtext began in 2002 as a microblogging service, but this week they announced the latest iteration of their flagship product, Socialtext 4.0, and to everyone’s surprise, it had suddenly become a collaboration platform. Socialtext users can view activity streams, and join task-related groups for collaboration, and like Socialcast users, can access the client online or on-premise.

As more and more companies endeavor to make microblogging channels the new workspaces, it will be interesting to see which companies take the lead—established productivity suite vendors adding social features to their products, or socially-bent companies looking for a piece of the enterprise market? Of course, we’ve still yet to see if enterprise software pundits are going to do some more serious bucking against the social media-inclined collaboration models that are taking hold. It’s going to be an interesting year, to be sure.

The much-hyped Salesforce Chatter went into private beta earlier this month, and demonstrations given to customers have made a definite effort to highlight the platform’s “fun” qualities—not just its functionalities. On Wednesday, Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff noted in a guest post on TechCrunch that he’s long wondered why enterprise software isn’t more like Facebook, and that the giant social network is the inspiration for the Salesforce Chatter.

Since Chatter was announced last year at the Dreamforce conference, arguments have been made on both sides as to whether or not the enterprise needs this kind of social networking. Now that Chatter has gone into beta, however, people are focusing their attention on whether or not Chatter is a viable threat to Microsoft SharePoint. Yes, SharePoint is widely used, but Salesforce execs note that it is not a “fun” product. It’s functional—and Salesforce Chatter aims to bring both collaborative functionality and, to an extent, entertainment.

Salesforce’s George Hu, the Executive VP of Marketing and Alliances, stated from the first that Salesforce wants to poach from the SharePoint market. Chatter is, of course, very different from SharePoint—SharePoint is a much more traditional collaboration platform, with file sharing over email and through folders, client software, Microsoft Exchange, etc. Chatter’s focus on collaboration mimics the concept of Facebook’s feeds—the necessary information is brought to the user, and they don’t have to mine unsorted data for what they need. In addition, Chatter gives a face and a voice to all employees using it, which can be especially helpful in a large enterprise.

Chatter’s resemblance to Facebook has, in many ways, branded it as a social networking tool, but it boasts some good document sharing and collaboration features, which will likely sway some SharePoint users to the platform. Chatter will be generally released this summer, and users will need to be using the Salesforce CRM platform to access it—this fact could definitely prevent SharePoint users from switching.

It’s tough to say how big a bite Chatter will take out of SharePoint. Chatter has the advantage of social networking, which is becoming a fixture in enterprise despite the fact that many deem it a distraction. It’ll be interesting to hear more about the platform in the coming months, and read more reviews when it’s generally released. We’re also curious to see what kind of competitive improvements Microsoft makes to SharePoint—the platform isn’t static, and surely Microsoft will take some measures to absorb the Chatter-impact.

We at Business-Software are excited to announce of newest report: Top 10 Social CRM Vendors. The consumer data on networks like Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn—to name a few—is something businesses of all sizes cannot afford to miss. Previously referred to as “CRM 2.0,” Social CRM incorporates social media into traditional CRM processes. For example, tracking customer conversations will also show any interactions you might have had over social networks.

In recent years social networks have become extremely important communication tools, and reports by Forrester Research estimate that over 80% of Americans, ages 18-55+, use social networks and tools on a monthly basis. The resulting chatter is a wealth of information about consumer sentiments and brand perceptions, and marketers, salespeople, and customer service reps can all benefit from Social CRM tools. With Social CRM, you can reach out to existing and potential customers on social networks from within your CRM platform, learn what customers are saying about your company or brand, and analyze social media data for future marketing initiatives.

Social CRM is the future of CRM, and our report is a new resource for you to find the solution that’s right for your company. The editors at Business-Software.com have compiled a list of the best vendors in the industry, and the comprehensive Top 10 Social CRM Vendors whitepaper is designed to help you build your “short list” and make an informed purchasing decision.

Business-Software.com’s free Top 10 Reports feature the key vendors in a variety of software sectors. Each report includes vendor background, vendor and product strengths, published pricing, and more.

Microsoft products have found a home in the majority of offices, but mostly in the form of personal productivity suites, like the ever-popular Office. Still, those familiar with, or looking for, CRM and ERP solutions have probably heard of Microsoft’s Dynamics platforms.

There will perhaps always be Microsoft naysayers, but there is little denying that their products must have some merits, given their popularity. Microsoft Dynamics CRM has been extremely popular, and Microsoft released a hosted version of Dynamics CRM 4 in 2008, thereby entering an arena with the likes of Salesforce.com and SugarCRM.

In Microsoft Dynamics CRM 4 Integration Unleased, authors Marc J. Wolenik and Rajya Vardham Bhaiya take a look at best practices, techniques, and sample code for using Dynamics CRM 4 to its greatest extent. Bhaiya and Wolenik recently sat down with InformIT.com, and answered some questions about what exactly, is the appeal of the titular platform.

Wolenik and Bhaiya do justice by the product—they don’t mention any faults, but they do make note of some features companies may be unaware Dynamics CRM 4 has. One thing the two do mention—something anyone discussing the merits of Microsoft productivity software seems to mention—is that it’s built on .NET technology and can be easily extended. Microsoft software is largely supported by existing infrastructure, making it an obvious choice at times.

For those who don’t think the choice is obvious, the authors give some notes to businesses considering Salesforce.com, or another CRM platform. (Unfortunately, the question was posed as “Microsoft vs. established CRM vendors,” so much of the answer aims to prove that Dynamics CRM is established. Wolenik notes that Dynamics CRM goes beyond just “customer” relationship management, and works to consolidate many line-of-business apps onto one platform. Meanwhile, Bhaiya points out that Dynamics CRM allows custom configuration for all of its packages, not just the premium ones (which is the practice Salesforce.com maintains).

The two also argue that Dynamics CRM 4’s integrative capabilities with SharePoint and Outlook cannot be matched, and Microsoft offers a flexible licensing structure for those companies that can, and want to, support an on-premise deployment.
For most companies in search of CRM, though, Microsoft’s big win will perhaps always be the comfort level it offers. Familiar UIs are always nice, and it’s also good to see that Microsoft hasn’t completely turtled in offering other features because of it. We’re curious to see what they come up with in 2010—and if they get even more aggressive with SaaS CRM providers like Salesforce.

This year, cloud computing services and collaboration platforms make for good stories, and this one deals with both. Next week, Big Blue is holding the Lotusphere Conference in Orlando—dedicated to all things dealing with LotusLive, their online collaboration suite—and this week they announced LotusLive’s exciting partnership with Panasonic.

Panasonic has adopted the LotusLive suite for email, calendaring, contact management, web conferencing, instant messaging, file sharing, and project management, and the apps will be available to about 100,000 employees in various departments at Panasonic. LotusLive will eventually be extended to 300,000 Panasonic employees, but the major coup for the suite comes via unseating Microsoft Exchange on Panasonic systems. Panasonic has decided to migrate from Microsoft Exchange, and in turn, IBM’s LotusLive deployment will be the largest cloud computing implementation to date.

The magnitude of the deployment cements the importance of online collaboration and SaaS platforms. We’re bound to see more of each this year, and I’m curious to see how IBM LotusLive competitors will respond. This adoption of LotusLive is also a blow go Google Apps, proving that it isn’t the dominant suite despite adoption by the city of Los Angeles. LotusLive is also cheaper than Google Apps—starting at $3 per user per month, while premiere versions of Google’s suite begin at $50—so we’re likely to see some price warring this year.

As for Microsoft: this is a mighty blow, but they’ll no doubt recover. Windows Azure is going fully live next month, and surely they’ve something up their sleeve. We’re just going to sit back and enjoy the show.

This morning, Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard announced a joint cloud investment: they’ll contribute $250 million for developing and selling private-cloud packages. From the sounds of it, Microsoft’s recently live Windows Azure cloud will be connected to HP hardware.

The new venture is a three-year deal, and will be built on a new “infrastructure-to-application” model, the goal of which is to improve cloud computing by speeding application implementation. Like the many cloud products before it, the new Microsoft/HP venture promises to be cost efficient and simple, as well as to improve interoperability—“as close to plug-and-play as we can [get],” is how HP’s chairman and CEO described the goal of the partnership.

One of Microsoft’s motivations for the collaboration is surely to be able to offer private- and hybrid-cloud products. Windows Azure is a public cloud that went live early in January and is scheduled to be fully deployed and monetized at the beginning of February, and Microsoft had received criticism for Azure being only a public offering.

There are many opportunities private clouds provide enterprises, such private platforms have received a good deal of criticism. On the one hand, private clouds allow businesses to build, manage, and scale applications and services that are hosted by their own data centers. The idea of a “private” cloud also offers some comfort in terms of security issues. On the other hand, private clouds have been derided for locking users into a single vendor or technology. And just this morning, during the “Forecasting Fisticuffs” webinar (in which some esteemed tech pundits discussed their cloud-computing predictions), it was suggested that 2010 would be the year the private cloud would be discredited.

Private clouds’ reputation for such lock-ins has been one of the reasons some are skeptical about this new venture. While many are excited for the full release of Windows Azure, underperforming Microsoft products have left some unconvinced. But we’re interested to see how Microsoft’s new venture plays out, and what kind of news it creates in enterprise.

Yesterday, Salesforce.com announced it would be offering $500 million aggregate principal amount of convertible senior notes due 2015, in a private placement to qualified institutional buyers pursuant to Rule 144A under the Securities Act of 1933. In layman’s terms: Salesforce’ll be floating a $500 million convertible bond offering, the bonds are due in 2015, and the cloud-computing evangelists will enter hedge fund transactions to minimize future dilution on shareholders.

Salesforce.com stock has previously fallen 5.5%, to $69.59, but they are still doing extremely well and dominate the cloud-based CRM market—so many people are scratching their heads over why exactly a company with cash is floating debt.

Most likely, Salesforce.com is going to use these funds for acquisitions. Salesforce has long been at the forefront of SaaS CRM, but they still need a strategy to remain at the market’s helm. And as they specified such a large amount of money, it seems less likely that Salesforce is taking advantage of low rates, and more likely that they have a specific use for the money in mind.

Given the completeness of Salesforce’s grasp CRM offering it could be any number of things, but what do you think they have their eye on?

With the proliferation of SaaS business productivity platforms last year, there came many debates about the security issues cloud computing may raise. Or rather, there were many tech pundits stating that the growing popularity of cloud computing led to sophisticated and safe applications, and therefore cloud security issues were a moot point. Earlier this week, the Federal Trade Commission announced they wanted to examine the issue for themselves, and will be holding a roundtable at the end of this month to discuss potential privacy problems; roundtable participants will include industry stakeholders.

In terms of business productivity software providers, vendors big and small—from Salesforce.com to Zoho to Microsoft—could be affected by the FTC’s findings. What the FTC is intending to find, however, is another question. Alex Williams at ReadWriteWeb is right to point out that the Commission’s inquiry might be poorly met, given that there are still debates about defining “cloud computing.”

The roundtable will be the second the FTC has held to discuss online privacy, and the inquiry stems from a letter written by FTC Director of Bureau Consumer Protection, David Vladeck, to the Federal Communications Commission, requesting a comment on a national broadband plan the FCC is drawing up. Vladeck’s letter asked that the FCC pay attention to cloud computing and identity management in during broadband development. Tech bloggers are right to point out that in the letter (which can be found on The Hill blog), Vladeck acknowledges the cost efficiency of cloud computing; the roundtable stems from concerns about the security issues raised by “storage of data on remote computers.”

The FTC’s obvious aim is to protect consumer privacy, but it’s unclear what exactly the result of this roundtable will be. Remote storage predates the term “cloud computing,” and even though privacy questions have been raised, the number of cloud computing applications is growing rapidly. Groups like the Electronic Privacy Information Center, and the Center for Digital Democracy, are asking the FTC to issue Fair Information Principles for the Internet rather than looking to industry privacy self-regulation, but it seems unlikely at this point that the FTC will desist.

It’s even more uncertain what the implications for business software will be. Most companies who’ve selected SaaS solutions have done so wisely, and after much research—because that is what we do in the internet age—and many companies that are apprehensive about an entirely cloud-based solution have chosen SaaS hybrid models. For those enterprise software buyers concerned, potential cloud security issues are not news, so I’m curious to see what the roundtable will determine for the business software market.

What do you think?

With all the commotion surrounding Enterprise 2.0, social networking tools and video enhancements have received most of the attention in the enterprise software sector, leaving methods like text messaging and SMS on the back burner. Both sides arguing the benefits of Enterprise 2.0 have made convincing statements, and it is certainly true that social networking is extremely beneficial for small businesses, who communicate with their customers on a more personal level. Social networking platforms like Twitter and Facebook, while providing real-time status updates and some collaboration perks, for the most part create noise in the enterprise atmosphere—at least for now.

For those businesses looking to strengthen customer relationships without the distracting clamor of some social and collaboration tools, SoundBite Communications is offering a medium for keeping contact with customers throughout the relationship lifecycle—via via text messaging.

SoundBite provides multichannel communications solutions, and they’ve recently released two products to their SoundBite Engage platform: Dialog Engine, and Agent Text Portal. Dialog Engine enables automated text messaging conversations by implementing custom business logic, while Agent Text Portal allows sales agents to send text messages according to customizable business rules in the platform. Aside from allowing sales teams to stay in touch throughout the sales cycle, the idea is to have more robust conversation with clients, thereby improving the customer’s experience. SoundBite has also released a contact-center specific offering, Contact Center Text Messaging Solution, which improves productivity and lowers telephony costs.

The whole family of products extends the uses for text messaging and SMS, but I’m curious to see how popular this program will become. Surely text messaging abilities are auspicious tools for any salesman’s arsenal—because it’s true, having a means of staying in touch often is invaluable—and multichannel approaches are always good. But text messages can sometimes be invasive, and I’m interested to see how they play out in the enterprise sphere.

Last week, Dennis Howlett announced some exciting news on both his personal and ZDNet blogs: the ICAEW (Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales) and several UK trade groups will be working together to develop SaaS/cloud standards.

This year, “SaaS” and “cloud computing” business softwares have been discussed nonstop, and those two terms have become largely interchangeable—and at the expense of understanding what each is. As Howlett puts it, “everything getting an _aaS label [is] now conflated into ‘cloud anything’”. The three trade groups are Intellect SaaS Group, the BASDA’s Cloud SIG, and EuroCloud UK, and they will meet with the ICAEW to develop best practices, or some sort of “quality mark” for vendors. The idea is to engage both the buy and sell sides to develop business standards for the erstwhile ambiguous SaaS economy.

In addition to working toward best practices and quality stamps, security (from data to APIs) is another issue to be discussed. But it should be noted that some of the security issues at hand for these groups are EU/UK-specific, and would not necessarily color a similar US debate.  As Howlett sees it, the important objectives are as follows:

1. Clarity for buyers and sellers about issues that are currently causing endless and at times futile debates
2. An opportunity for ICAEW to act as honest broker between buyers and sellers, demonstrating leadership for both members (who may have concerns) and more broadly as a body that has the public interest in mind.
3. A requirement that all trade groups act in concert to help develop business led standards that elevate discussions around technology to a level where business decision makers can readily understand what’s going on and relate it to their business needs and concerns.

He also notes that his extensive experience causes him to be “100%” behind this initiative, but those who don’t share his level of expertise can easily get behind the move as well. The simple fact that this would clarify “SaaS” and “cloud” for buyers and sellers is huge, and seemingly more necessary as the two become muddled. Hopefully we will soon see a similar venture stateside.