Salesforce Chatter coming to iPhones and BlackBerrys

Salesforce.com has announced a mobile version of its Chatter platform, allowing users to collaborate with colleagues in real time using all major smartphone platforms.

Chatter allows employees to create a Facebook-like profile and post status updates, comments, documents and photos, as well as follow and collaborate with team members while on the move, the on-demand software vendor said.

Speaking at Salesforce's Cloudforce 2010 user event in London, Kraig Swensrud, senior vice president of product marketing, noted that mobile devices are becoming the enterprise desktop for more than 50 per cent of the workforce. He added that every piece of information inside the enterprise cloud has a Chatter feed.

"[Chatter] bypasses email, which was not designed for [real-time] collaboration," Swensrud said. "Users can share insights, ideas, information and presentations in real time [on the move] to win business."

Chatter Mobile will be available on iPad, iPhone and BlackBerry devices later this year. An Android version is scheduled for the first half of 2011. The app will be available as a free upgrade for Salesforce CRM and Force.com subscribers.

The desktop version of Chatter was launched on 22 June and has been deployed at around 20,000 companies, according to Salesforce. It is downloadable at no charge for existing Salesforce subscribers.

SAP unveiled plans last month to offer its software products on mobile platforms within nine months, using technology from recently acquired enterprise mobility firm Sybase.

Bill McDermott, co-chief executive at SAP, said that it is imperative for the company to expand to the mobile platform given that data is doubling every 18 months.