Salesforce.com rolls out free version of Chatter

IDG News Service - Salesforce.com on Tuesday announced Chatter Free, a version of its social collaboration software that includes a Facebook-like "invite" feature that enables paying users to invite anyone, even non-Salesforce.com customers, to use Chatter.

Chatter employs familiar social-networking functionality like user profiles, real-time information streams, status updates and file-sharing. Now, when a user accepts a Chatter invite, he or she will receive a Chatter Free license.

Chatter Free has some limitations compared to other versions of the software, such as Chatter Plus, which allows users to "follow" business data and use custom objects. Salesforce.com is hoping Chatter Free users will want more over time and decide to upgrade.

Some 60,000 of Salesforce.com's roughly 87,000 customers have deployed Chatter since its general release earlier this year, according to the company. However, it's not clear how broad those deployments are in general.

Chatter Free's invite feature, however, is "going to take Chatter enterprise-wide," Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement.

Chatter has made a serious impact on the IT industry, in the view of analyst Denis Pombriant, managing principal of Beagle Research.

"First, it created or certainly solidified a new market niche for collaboration technology. Second, it was another proof point for the robustness of the cloud computing model and [Salesforce.com's Force.com platform] in particular. And finally, it domesticated social media," he said in a recent blog post.

"Chatter avoids many of the pitfalls seen in other social media in part because it is aimed at a population that is expected to use it as a condition of employment, and that appears to be working well from the stories I've seen," Pombriant added. "The result is a proof point for social technology in the enterprise, something that was lacking."

Benioff is expected to discuss Chatter Free as well as Salesforce.com's new Database.com service during a keynote address later Tuesday at the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco.

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