If you've been following the news about Salesforce, you might have seen their recent acquisitions of the social CRMs Radian6 and Buddy Media (News - Alert). There's another name to add to that list, as they've just acquired GoInstant for more than $70 million in cash.
GoInstant, co-founded by Jevon MacDonald and Gavin Uhma, uses "co-browsing" technology that's accessible through standard Web browsers without any sort of plug-ins, letting groups collaboratively browse online. It was designed to help companies use real-time collaboration to create personalized customer experiences; with co-browsing sessions, customers and agents can quite literally be on the same page every step of the way.
"Joining the enterprise cloud computing leader will allow us to accelerate our mission," stated the co-founders. "Not only will we continue to advance our technology, but with Salesforce.com's (News - Alert) support, we will be able to super charge our ability to deliver a truly amazing way for companies to engage and interact with consumers in real time. We will have more resources, and be able to reach more customers, faster."
Social features have been in high demand recently, especially for customer relationship management. Oracle (News - Alert) has recently bought Virtue, a social marketing provider, for $300 million, while Salesforce's recent acquisitions of Buddy Media for $689 million and Radian6 for $326 million dwarf the $70 million spent on GoInstant. While there's still little word on how Salesforce will integrate GoInstant, it's clear that they're investing a lot into the uses and potential of social CRM.
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Robert Pleasant is a writer for TMCnet, covering new news in the world of technology and communications. A graduate from UC Santa Cruz with a BA in Literature, Robert has been writing for years, but has only recently had his reports start appearing on websites such as TMCnet and UCStrategies.Edited by Brooke Neuman