Salesforce.com sees 'shining star' in APAC

update SINGAPORE--With a year-on-year revenue growth of 36 percent, the Asia-Pacific was the fastest-growing region for Salesforce.com in 2009, a regional executive reported Wednesday.

"Asia-Pacific was the shining star [for Salesforce.com] in terms of growth for the last 12 months," Jeremy Cooper, Asia-Pacific regional vice president, said at a media briefing. This is the first time the company has released region-specific revenue data.

According to the company's full-year results announcement last month, Salesforce.com's worldwide revenues for 2009 reached US$1.3 billion, up 21 percent year on year.

Cooper noted the company also added more than 1,800 net new customers in the region last year, marking also a 36 percent year-on-year increase. The total regional customer base now stands at about 7,000 organizations. Globally, the company added approximately 17,100 net new clients to reach 72,500. In terms of subscribers, there are now a total of 2 million worldwide.

Salesforce Chatter opening to all soon

Built to be similar to Facebook and Twitter, Chatter allows real-time collaboration among users of a private network. Cooper said he sees Chatter eroding the use of e-mail and pointed out that social networks already are "larger" than e-mail in terms of usage.

Chatter was first announced in November last year and is now in private beta.

Singapore-based Helu-Trans, which provides moving services, is one of the beta participants for Chatter. Jason Chin, Helu-Trans' chief strategy officer, said the company has participated in the beta for two weeks but has only been using the profile updating function.

However, he believes Chatter will help the business by allowing on-the-move sales personnel to update customer requirements real-time via their mobile devices. This will make the company's task management more efficient, said Chin.