If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, and walks like a duck, it probably is a duck. That is, unless you're Salesforce.com, and you're talking about its new Chatter application. While observers have looked at features like profiles, status updates, Twitter and Facebook integration as proof that Chatter is an enterprise-grade social network, the company and its executives are taking pains to call it something else -- a "social platform," or, as carefully noted by Salesforce CEO and co-founder Marc Benioff, a collaboration tool:
Salesforce was careful to position Chatter as a collaboration tool, not a "social this or social that" because there's such a glut of social networking tools, [Benioff] said, and customers are more willing to pay for collaboration software.
"We really want to talk about collaboration, because that really is a budget item for our customers," Benioff said.
The verbal massaging extends to some of the feature descriptions. On the product website, "social content" doesn't mean updates or links, but rather documents, spreadsheets and presentations that workers can share with one another. The demo video (below) refers to "social computing," meaning social networks like Facebook.
Another Salesforce co-founder, Executive Vice President of Technology Parker Harris, also stayed on message with the collaboration concept in a talk with ZDNet editors (see video below). "I think about our platform as a collaboration platform," Harris said. "You're building applications to collaborate around data in the enterprise on a trusted system."
So, are Benioff and Parker right to call Chatter a collaboration engine, or is it really just a social networking tool, dressed up with document sharing and some enterprise-grade hooks into Salesforce.com's other apps? Until Chatter rolls out next year, you'll have to make your own judgments. The videos below are a good place to start.
Video: "Parker Harris chatters about Chatter"
Video: Salesforce Chatter Demo
Sources and research: BusinessWeek, altimetergroup.com, blogs.ZDNet.com, TheStandard.com, VentureBeat.com, Salesforce.com
Image: Demo video screenshot
Ian Lamont is the author of The Social Enterprise blog on TheStandard.com. Comment below, or email Ian at ian@thestandard.com. Follow Ian on Twitter at http://twitter.com/ilamont. Ian's bio and disclosures are located here. Industry Standard updates and asides are available at twitter.com/the_standard and in our newsletters, and you can join our Industry Standard Facebook page and LinkedIn group.
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