Social media, mobile applications and cloud technologies are undoubtedly the trending tech topics of the year 2011. Tech giants whose core competencies have been lacking in these areas are reacting by buying business that they hope will bring them to the forefront.

salesforce.com is one of those companies. An undisputed leader in cloud-based CRM, the company has been making news this year with its acquisitions of companies that are leaders in mobile and social technologies such as Radion6, Manymoon and Assistly.

The announcement on Monday of its purchase of Model Metrics brings it another step further in the mobile and social expertise direction.

George Hu, COO of salesforce.com, commented in a statement, “The addition of Model Metrics' mobile and social expertise will accelerate salesforce.com's ability to lead the shift to the social enterprise and empower partners to develop their social enterprise practice.”

According to the announcement, Model Metrics is a seven-year-old company that has accrued more than 500 customers and has led large mobile and social cloud deployments.  It has an established relationship with salesforce.com, having accomplished in excess of 1,000 salesforce.com deployments.

“With Model Metrics, our strategic services team will have more of the mobile and social capabilities required to enable and accelerate the success of our partner ecosystem,” Maria Martinez, EVP of Customers for Life at salesforce.com, said in a statement.

An article in ComputerWorld UK said Model Metrics has been in expansion mode, offering of new services as well as broadening support for new mobile device platforms, such as mobile apps running on several Android (News - Alert) devices, iPad and iPhone, while offering access to salesforce.com data offline. 

That article also said they that it was reported a few weeks ago that Model Metrics said for 80 percent of its customers, their cloud deployments include smartphone and tablet adoption plans.

“salesforce.com and Model Metrics share a vision for the social enterprise,” said, Adam Caplan, founder and CEO of Model Metrics, in a statement. “By joining salesforce.com, we can help more companies unlock the value of cloud computing with disruptive mobile and social technologies.”

GigaOM reported that while the financial details of the deal between salesforce.com and Model Metrics were not made available, it is expected to close by January 31, 2012, which is the end of the fiscal fourth quarter for salesforce.com.

In other news, TMCnet reported, “Urban Airship recently raised $15.1 Million from key investors – such as Verizon and Salesforce.com (News - Alert) – and recent news analysis is explaining why the trend is occurring.”