Salesforce.com Announced the Launch of its Communities Product, Proclaiming the Ending the Era of Legacy Portal Software

Last week,  Salesforce launched Salesforce Communities, ending the era of legacy portal software. New Salesforce Communities will enable customer companies to create social communities with business data and processes embedded at the core, eliminating the trade off between legacy portals and social point solutions With new Salesforce Communities, customer companies will be able to create social communities with business data and processes embedded at the core to transform how they sell, service and market. Communities can also be created for any customer experience According to Salesforce the new Salesforce Communities mark the End of Legacy Portals. Today, more than ever, companies need to connect with their customers and partners in new ways. The popularity of crowd sourcing in social communities such as Yelp, the level of engagement on social networks like Facebook, and the increase in connected devices in the consumer world—all combined with the unprecedented growth in global adoption of mobile devices—have created a new generation of customers and partners who have new expectations for how they want to engage with a company. Pricing for Salesforce Communities will start at $500 per month. Salesforce Communities is currently scheduled to be generally available by the Summer ’13 release. Customer engagement becomes the key driver of profitable companies. Companies that can make the shift to an agile, customer-focused organizations are positioned to become leaders in their space.