Salesforce buys Dimdim for real-time comms technology

Salesforce.com said on Thursday that it will acquire software firm Dimdim in a move to add real-time communication technology to its Chatter platform.

Dimdim, founded in 2007, develops presence, messaging and screen-sharing technologies. Its products allow people to share screens, documents and communicate in meetings via a browser.

Salesforce said it will add to its development team with the Dimdim purchase, which was valued at $31m (£20m). In many respects, Dimdim resembles Cisco's WebEx and Citrix's GoToMeeting platforms. For Salesforce, those capabilities are a logical extension to Chatter, its business-oriented social messaging product. The company said it will integrate Dimdim into Chatter, but has no plans to enter web conferencing.

For more on this ZDNet UK-selected story, see Salesforce buys Dimdim for $31 million, bolsters Chatter collaboration on ZDNet.com.