Salesforce.com adds Blue Jeans video conferencing
The original headline for this post was "Video conferencing startup seeks face time with business customers," but it was too long and too silly to keep.
Nonetheless, that's the truth for Blue Jeans Network. The startup plans to demonstrate at Dreamforce 2012, which begins Sept. 18 -- 'natch -- that its interoperable video conferencing services have been integrated with salesforce.com.
The motive here is clear: the rapidly rising Blue Jeans wants more customers, and why not make direct overtures to the sales and service pros using Salesforce software? After all, sales folks are among those who value face-to-face interaction the most.
More details from the horse's mouth:
The Blue Jeans interoperable video conferencing service is a cloud-based "meet me" service, modeled after the traditional audio conferencing services people use every day. When a meeting is scheduled (in this case through the salesforce.com application), meeting participants receive an email or calendar invitation and can choose how they want to connect to the meeting. Combined with in-meeting screen sharing, the salesforce.com integration with Blue Jeans is ideal for both internal and external meetings when geographically dispersed participants need to come together.
If you're unfamiliar with Blue Jeans, the company's claim to fame is smoothing over the (admittedly very rough) edges of enterprise video conferencing. By pulling in video from Cisco, Polycom, LifeSize, Skype, Microsoft or Google, the company promises mostly seamless video, regardless of hardware or location. (For example, if we at ZDNet want to pull in a freelancer using Skype during a Polycom-based editorial call, we can.)
Blue Jeans, along with its various competitors, also promise the tried-and-true videoconferencing values -- cost-savings, environmental benefits, flexibility, the next generation of work -- but the bottom line is that the company and its rivals are working to break down the corporate silos that were erected with the first waves of video conferencing technology.
The Blue Jeans-Salesforce.com integration is expected to materialize next month.