Salesforce Acquisition Aims To Make Chatter More Like Facebook

Salesforce said it spent $31 million in cash, net of cash acquired, on the completed acquisition.

Founded in 2007, Lowell, Mass.-based Dimdim develops real-time communications technologies including presence, messaging and screen sharing. The acquisition allows Salesforce to add those capabilities to Chatter, which has been implemented by some 60,000 Salesforce customers since it became available in June.

That mirrors the Facebook approach of combining collaboration and communications into an integrated service, Salesforce said. "The acquisition of Dimdim will help Salesforce.com deliver to the enterprise the same integrated collaboration and communication experience that made Facebook the world's most popular Internet site," Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff said in a statement.