23 May Salesforce.com CRM Embeds Skype

Salesforce has long since been on a largely successful campaign which aimes to dominate the emerging world of on-demand applications. Now, salesforce.com has announced a version of the Skype Internet-based telephone software to work with its Salesforce CRM. This special version of Skype, developed by the German voice-over-IP specialist PamConsult will enable salesforce.com users to incorporate phone communications in their CRM applications. It shall be available free through salesforce.com’s on-demand software directory AppExchange. Skype Users for Salesforce can make and receive calls or initiate text chats directly with other Skype users, and their contact names and presence indicators can be added manually or imported automatically into Salesforce. Moreso, even non-Skype users with traditional telephones can be called with a single click and the package can be used for conference calls with up to ten Skype or non-Skype users. Phill Robinson, chief operating officer for sales at salesforce.com, says the Skype extension is another component in the AppExchange portfolio which will help promote the platform as the leading on-demand application environment: “We are trying to build a developer community around AppExchange and with this announcement developers can embed Skype in high order applications. There are 575 applications in AppExchange now and we want it to be to on-demand computing what Windows was to client server.” According to those working on this project, there is now a gathering momentum around AppExchange, and the Skype development represents a shift in the type of technology being built for the platform. The Skype development follows a number of moves by salesforce.com in recent months to promote its AppExchange platform including links with Adobe’s Flex.