Salesforce.com is continuing its shift towards the social enterprise following the announcement that it is to acquire Model Metrics, a mobile and social Cloud consulting services company.
The acquisition, announced this week, will add mobile and social expertise to Salesforce.com’s arsenal allowing partners to develop their social enterprise practice. Commenting on the news, Salesforce.com COO George Hu said the company was “thrilled” with the response from customers and partners to the social enterprise vision:
Founded in 2003, Model Metrics focuses on mobile and call centre technology, social enterprise solutions, business process and change management innovation, and custom development. The company has completed more than 1,000 Salesforce deployments for mid-sized and Fortune 1000 companies. Adam Caplan, founder and CEO, Model Metrics, said:
The Chicago based company has more than 500 customers, including Blue Shield of California, Heidrick & Struggles, and Standard Register and has completed more than 1,000 Salesforce deployments. The Model Metrics team will join Salesforce.com's strategic services organisation where they will focus on developing and sharing best practices with partners to accelerate social enterprise success, allowing Salesforce to tap into Model Metrics' expertise in mobile and social design conception, user experience, business process alignment, and frameworks for building employee and customer facing apps.
The transaction is expected to close in salesforce.com's fiscal fourth quarter ending Jan. 31, 2012, subject to customary closing conditions. It is not expected to have a material impact on either revenue or EPS for Q4 or FY12.
Last week Salesforce.com unveiled a new task and project management service, billing the launch as the closest it's come to a consumer product. The functionality comes from the company's acquisition of Manymoon in February, a popular service that adds productivity and collaboration tools to Google Apps and LinkedIn.
Do.com is a free collaboration service that allows users to launch projects, assign tasks and invite others to join and collaborate. The applications is now in public beta. The HTML5-based service is integrated with Gmail and Google Apps, but can be used with any email address or client.
The new offering is also available as an iOS mobile app for Apple's iPhone and iPad. Salesforce has said it plans to add premium features later on, and the company is also working on tighter integration with its Chatter collaboration service.
Do.com will also be available through Salesforce's AppExchange, Apple's App Store, Google Apps Marketplace, the Chrome Web Store and LinkedIn Applications.
