Dreamforce 2012: Salesforce.com unveils new line of products

Salesforce.com has unveiled a suite of new products at its Dreamforce event including updates to its cloud portfolio and a new file-sharing platform named Chatterbox.

It has dubbed Chatterbox ‘The Dropbox for the enterprise', but the platform will directly compete with Dropbox as well as start-up Box which counts Salesforce.com among its investors.

The firm said that Chatterbox would allow people to manage and share files in the business apps that they already use.

Another update was Salesforce Touch, which is based on HTML5 and will allow existing Salesforce users to use the platform on any mobile device.

At the conference in San Francisco, the company's president Hilary Koplow-McAdams said this was introduced because of repeated feedback from customers who wanted to be able to use Salesforce on any device.

"Customers kept asking ‘why can't I take Salesforce on the road with me'," she said.

The company also launched Chatter Communities for Service, a customer service solution to "tie social communities together with a social contact centre based on a common knowledge base", the firm said. While a version to connect partners is also available to create a private community site for their products and offerings.

Another key introduction is its Social Key product, which has been made available within its Data.com service, which is used to help businesses in searching for and preserving sales leads.

"Using Social Key you can link identity from the social web to corporate systems," Koplow-McAdams said.