Salesforce.com | featured news

Salesforce.com is expected to buy start-up GoInstant for more than $70 million, as the big provider of online business software beefs up its customer-service offerings.

Co-founded in 2009 by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey, Square enables people to accept credit card payments on iPhone, iPad or Android devices... In a move that positions the company for a potential initial public offering, Square has hired former Goldman Sachs and Salesforce.com executive Sarah Friar as chief financial officer.

Salesforce.com agreed to acquire Buddy Media in a deal worth as much as $745 million, continuing its rapid expansion into social-media marketing. Salesforce Chief Executive Marc Benioff said the deal will help the company keep up with demand as the online marketing business matures. Chief marketing officers are expected to outpace chief information officers in directing technology spending within the next five years, according to a recent report by industry researcher Gartner.

Amazon.com, apart from being a major online retailer of books, DVDs, music, games, apparel, and other merchandise, also has a small business of providing cloud and other Web services. It offers Web services like cloud computing and cloud storage service offerings, in which it competes with bigger players like Google, Microsoft and Salesforce.com. Amazon also owns and operates websites such as Audible.com, IMDB.com, and Shelfari.com.

Salesforce.com launched a social enterprise application here at Dreamforce today that will allow companies to create their own private, social networks and integrate with Twitter, Facebook and other social applications.

Dubbed Salesforce Chatter, the application serves as a secure enterprise collaboration application and social development platform.