Business Apps Offer Social Tools

Microsoft, Salesforce.com Take Networking-Site Cues
By Nick Wingfield And Ben Worthen (WSJ)

An unlikely software sector wants to get in on the social-networking act: business applications.

On Wednesday, Microsoft Corp. and Salesforce.com Inc. became two of the most high-profile companies yet to retool business-oriented offerings to emulate Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn—Web services that help consumers track each other using posted photos, information feeds, status updates and other features.

Microsoft, of Redmond, Wash., said the next version of its Outlook e-mail program will automatically display personal information from social-networking sites for people in Outlook’s address book.

Meanwhile, Salesforce.com, a San Francisco-based company known for software it offers as a Web service, announced a set of enhancements called Chatter that mimic some of the functions of sites like Twitter and Facebook.

Smaller start-ups like Xobni Corp. also have found significant audiences by forming connections between social sites and business applications. The moves are the latest sign of how consumer-oriented technologies—from instant messaging to Apple Inc.’s iPhone—are invading the workplace and forcing companies to adapt to advances that boost productivity.

For example, social-networking sites help users track the identities and activities of others, which can come in handy in a big company. A lot of businesses have started to ask, “Why is it easier to follow strangers on Facebook than employees in my own company?” said Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com’s chief executive.

Salesforce.com says Chatter will allow employees to create profiles similar to the ones found on Facebook, albeit with an emphasis on connecting colleagues with relevant skills or projects. It is also designed to let users receive updates about data stored in the system. Mr. Benioff said Chatter, which should be available in early 2010, will be available for free to all Salesforce.com customers.

Microsoft says the next version of its e-mail software, Outlook 2010, will allow someone who receives an e-mail to quickly view a dossier of sorts on the sender by seeing a photo they have posted of themselves on social-networking sites and short messages about what they’re doing on Twitter and Facebook. The information will appear in a window within Outlook 2010, which went into public testing this week and will be released in final form during the first half of next year.

“It gives you a really nice, holistic view of things that you have in common with people on e-mail,” said Chris Capossela, a Microsoft senior vice president. “It gets you out of the e-mail-only silo and gives you a much more 360-degree view.”

Ellen Levy, vice president of corporate development and strategy at LinkedIn, said blending information from its service—such as employment and education history—with Outlook could help people form stronger professional bonds with people they’re communicating with through e-mail.

Yet there’s also the potential for complicating business relationships too. People who express overtly political opinions on Facebook or Twitter or share stories of personal traumas might find those details coloring their dealings with business associates.

Charlene Li, an analyst at Altimeter Group who follows social media, doesn’t believe that there’s a privacy dilemma created by business applications tapping into social-networking sites since, in most cases, people have already made a calculation about what information—and with whom—they’re comfortable sharing online.