Salesforce launches Chatter

Cloud computing giant stepping into social networking, launches a "Facebook for the enterprise"

With Salesforce.com's Dreamforce conference kicking off this week in San Francisco comes a major announcement from the company.  It's launching a product called Salesforce Chatter, which the cloud computing giant describes as a "Facebook for the Enterprise."

Salesforce is stepping into a market already touched on, social networking for enterprises.  Some startups playing in the space include CubeTree, a freemium enterprise collaboration suite which recently raised $8 million, as well as other companies like Socialtext.

Chatter will allow companies to collaborate in real time with a secure, private social network for their business, says Salesforce.  It will include familiar social networking features such as: profiles, status updates, feeds, groups, social apps, social content, social sharing, Twitter integration, Facebook integration and mobile compatibility.  

Also, Chatter will be available for developers to integrate onto their Force.com applications, which Salesforce says will "instantly become social."  

"Twitter is based on the idea that the open exchange of information has a positive global impact. We see a lot of the same inspiration behind Chatter. We think it will enable employees to find more information, more quickly, from the people and content that matters most to them," said Jason Goldman, director of products, Twitter.

The product won't be available until 2010 and the company announced it will be sold for $50 per user per month and will include Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce Content and Force.com.