Salesforce.com buys social app vendor for Chatter integration

Salesforce.com is continuing its acquisition spree by purchasing social productivity applications vendor Manymoon for a reported $25-35 million to integrate into its Chatter in-house social network platform.

Manymoon’s offerings are intended to help staff keep track of their work-based tasks and collaborate more effectively with colleagues.

One application enables users to add email-based content and contacts to project and task documents and to set due date and reminder email alerts. The product comes in a free standard or premium paid-for version and is available from the Google Apps Marketplace and Chrome Web Store as well as LinkedIn.

Other tools enable users to browse large quantities of Google Docs-based documents and share with them other people. Manymoon claimed in a blog announcing its purchase by Salesforce that its software was currently employed by more than 50,000 businesses.

The firm will operate as a separate unit within the Software-as-a-Service vendor’s organisation and the existing team will be kept intact.

Although Manymoon did not specify that its offerings would be integrated into Salesforce’s CRM applications, Tom Roderick, an analyst at Stifel Nicolaus, said in a research note: "It is clearly evident that Salesforce.com will use the acquired technology to further extend the existing capabilities within the company’s Chatter initiative."

By integrating it more tightly with Google Apps (which are already integrated into the core CRM platform), "Salesforce.com is looking to make Chatter more functional across the enterprise", he added.