Critical.
Authoritative.
Strategic.
Subscribe to CIO Magazine »

Salesforce.com readies native mobile Chatter apps

Initial support for the software will include Apple devices, BlackBerries and Android

Salesforce.com is working on a series of native mobile applications for its Chatter collaboration software, the company announced Wednesday. Supported platforms include Apple's iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch, Google Android and Reseach in Motion's BlackBerry.

Chatter, with its Facebook-like milieu for information-sharing and social networking, had already been accessible via mobile Web browsers. But customers really prefer applications developed specifically for a mobile device's form factor, said Kraig Swensrud, senior vice president of product marketing.

Moreover, the mobile medium opens up tantalizing new possibilities for Chatter collaboration among distributed teams, Swensrud said. For example, workers could use the applications to share photographs of a whiteboard used during a brainstorming session.

The BlackBerry and Apple device applications will be available late this year, followed by an Android version sometime in the first half of 2011, Salesforce.com said.

Salesforce.com sees "no user demand" for Windows Mobile, and has no current plans to support it, Swensrud said.

Although the applications won't be released for some time, Salesforce.com is announcing them now to give customers a heads-up, Swensrud said.

Salesforce.com is taking its time developing the software. Corporate users "want a product they can roll out and standardize," whereas it's more accepted to constantly revise consumer mobile applications, he said.

The vendor is wise to highlight the upcoming applications now, said Altimeter Group analyst Ray Wang. "It's a very competitive market. In this space, if you don't let your customers know what's going on, your competitors will be."

It's also taking some time for vendors to develop mobile application strategies simply because the mobile platforms themselves have been changing so quickly, he added. "No one knows who is going to win or lose."

Existing Salesforce.com customers get Chatter at no additional charge, and the same will go for the mobile applications.

Chris Kanaracus covers enterprise software and general technology breaking news for The IDG News Service. Chris's e-mail address is Chris_Kanaracus@idg.com

Join the CIO Australia group on LinkedIn. The group is open to CIOs, IT Directors, COOs, CTOs and senior IT managers.

More about: Apple, BlackBerry, Facebook, Google, IDG, Motion, Salesforce.com, Wang
References show all

Comments

Post new comment

The content of this field is kept private and will not be shown publicly.
Users posting comments agree to the CIO comments policy.
Login or register to link comments to your user profile, or you may also post a comment without being logged in.
Related Coverage
Related Whitepapers
Latest Stories
Community Comments
Tags: applications, chatter, collaboration, mobile, salesforce.com, social networking, software
Latest Blog Posts
Whitepapers
  • Consolidation Without Compromise
    Virtualisation of computer, storage and infrastructure is enabling the transformation of enterprise datacentres into private clouds. The impact is an unprecedented ability to consolidate infrastructure without compromise: no change to service level agreements (SLAs), no loss of performance or scale, and no regression in the organisation’s overall security posture. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • Case Study - TNT Express successfully reduces their paper usage and costs using a new document solution
    in 2009 TNT decided to evaluate the market for new head office multifunction devices (MFD) as their current MFD fleet was almost seven years old. The objective was to reduce the number of devices and improve productivity, meet TNT’s future technical requirements and reduce the total cost of ownership of the equipment. They were also looking for a provider who would provide cost and service reporting as well as help streamline their electronic archiving requirements via the scanning of dockets and documents. Read on.
    Learn more »
  • IBM zEnterprise System Brings Hybrid Computing Capabilities to Midsize Organisations
    This paper focuses on the IBM z114 cross-tier solution, which brings IBM AIX Unix and Linux workloads into the mix, with Microsoft Windows support to follow in the future. This blended approach to computing allows workloads running on any of those operating systems to communicate more quickly and effectively with the System z, producing business benefits from the orchestration, or coordination, of management for all of the workloads running across all of the linked platforms.
    Learn more »
All whitepapers
rhs_login_lockGet exclusive access to Invitation only events CIO, reports & analysis.
Recent comments