This past week, Salesforce.com acquired Dimdim, a browser-based web conferencing service provider. Dimdim is a very useful app and I’ve used it to conduct webinars, User Group meetings, and training sessions for remote employees. As web conferencing goes, Dimdim included all of the basic functionality: ability to schedule a web conference, track meeting registrations, automatically send email reminders to meeting registrants … even the ability to record the web conference for later playback.
After the event, the web conferencing organizer would receive an email link, which he could immediately share with anyone – so they could view the recorded session and play it back at their leisure. Organizers also recedived an embedded HTML link, which they could paste into their blog or website, making the content of the meeting available to a general audience. Beyond web conferencing, Dimdim had other useful features, like whiteboard collaboration, the ability to share and store documents, phone conferencing, and webcam sharing.
I used Dimdim for a good number of Salesforce.com consulting projects that I was doing for Non-Profit Organizations. These organizations were attracted to Dimdim because it was the only free web conferencing solution available. The free version only supported 20 attendees, but that was perfect for their needs. The Pro version, which allowed a greater number of participants and more functionality, was only $25 / month. Very compelling, compared to other web conference vendors, which were in the $40 - $60 price range.
It’s clear that Saleforce.com is acquiring Dimdim for its technology, not its customer base. When giving me the heads-up about the acquisition, my Salesforce.com Account Executive was careful to mention that Salesforce currently has “no plans to go into the web conferencing market.” Shortly after that, I got an email on my free Dimdim user account confirming the same: my Dimdim account will remain active until March 15th, and after that I won’t be able to use it.
That doesn’t mean Dimdim will go away completely. Afterall, Dimdim is based on open source code, and an open source version of the code will be posted to SourceForge.net. However, neither Salesforce.com nor Dimdim will be contributing to the open source project going forward. Source: Brown, Rodney (2011, January 7). Mass High Tech: Dimdim sells to Salesforce.com for $31M.
Why is this good for Dimdim? In the press release, Dimdim CEO DD Ganguly summed it up simply enough, “From our start, Dimdim has focused on enabling real-time collaboration in the cloud, with no software. Salesforce.com gives us the opportunity to apply our expertise and align our vision of real-time, social enterprise software in the cloud – at a scale that wouldn’t have been otherwise possible.”
Why is this good for Salesforce.com? Good development talent is hard to acquire, and in just 3 years, Dimdim has done some very interesting, innovative stuff in the web conferencing space. Salesforce plans to retain the Dimdim engineering team, most of which are located in India. Although the standalone web conferencing service is terminating, the engineering team will focus on integrating “Dimdim’s technology with Chatter as quickly as possible.” Source: Henschen, Doug (2011, January 7). InformationWeek: Salesforce.com Acquistion Feeds Chatter .
Why is this good for Salesforce.com Users? Plan on seeing some new features in the Salesforce.com Collaboration Cloud service very soon: instant messaging (and being able to log those communications to a contact / lead / case), screen sharing (how handy will that be for your customer service team?), whiteboard collaboration sessions that can be recorded and stored in Content or Chatter Groups, training webinars (also recorded and stored for replay), and more. Great stuff coming!
Why is this good for Dimdim Users? Well, truth be told, it ain’t. There’s not one good thing about this for Dimdim users, and I’m sorry to see my Dimdim web conferencing user account go away. Individuals who used Dimdim for web-conferencing will look toward other web-conferencing solutions (Yugma/Skype, for no-low cost; GoToMeeting, WebEx, Live Meeting, iLinc or others for subscription services)
What about you? What are you looking forward to with the latest acquisition by Salesforce.com?
After the event, the web conferencing organizer would receive an email link, which he could immediately share with anyone – so they could view the recorded session and play it back at their leisure. Organizers also recedived an embedded HTML link, which they could paste into their blog or website, making the content of the meeting available to a general audience. Beyond web conferencing, Dimdim had other useful features, like whiteboard collaboration, the ability to share and store documents, phone conferencing, and webcam sharing.
I used Dimdim for a good number of Salesforce.com consulting projects that I was doing for Non-Profit Organizations. These organizations were attracted to Dimdim because it was the only free web conferencing solution available. The free version only supported 20 attendees, but that was perfect for their needs. The Pro version, which allowed a greater number of participants and more functionality, was only $25 / month. Very compelling, compared to other web conference vendors, which were in the $40 - $60 price range.
It’s clear that Saleforce.com is acquiring Dimdim for its technology, not its customer base. When giving me the heads-up about the acquisition, my Salesforce.com Account Executive was careful to mention that Salesforce currently has “no plans to go into the web conferencing market.” Shortly after that, I got an email on my free Dimdim user account confirming the same: my Dimdim account will remain active until March 15th, and after that I won’t be able to use it.
That doesn’t mean Dimdim will go away completely. Afterall, Dimdim is based on open source code, and an open source version of the code will be posted to SourceForge.net. However, neither Salesforce.com nor Dimdim will be contributing to the open source project going forward. Source: Brown, Rodney (2011, January 7). Mass High Tech: Dimdim sells to Salesforce.com for $31M.
Why is this good for Dimdim? In the press release, Dimdim CEO DD Ganguly summed it up simply enough, “From our start, Dimdim has focused on enabling real-time collaboration in the cloud, with no software. Salesforce.com gives us the opportunity to apply our expertise and align our vision of real-time, social enterprise software in the cloud – at a scale that wouldn’t have been otherwise possible.”
Why is this good for Salesforce.com? Good development talent is hard to acquire, and in just 3 years, Dimdim has done some very interesting, innovative stuff in the web conferencing space. Salesforce plans to retain the Dimdim engineering team, most of which are located in India. Although the standalone web conferencing service is terminating, the engineering team will focus on integrating “Dimdim’s technology with Chatter as quickly as possible.” Source: Henschen, Doug (2011, January 7). InformationWeek: Salesforce.com Acquistion Feeds Chatter .
Why is this good for Salesforce.com Users? Plan on seeing some new features in the Salesforce.com Collaboration Cloud service very soon: instant messaging (and being able to log those communications to a contact / lead / case), screen sharing (how handy will that be for your customer service team?), whiteboard collaboration sessions that can be recorded and stored in Content or Chatter Groups, training webinars (also recorded and stored for replay), and more. Great stuff coming!
Why is this good for Dimdim Users? Well, truth be told, it ain’t. There’s not one good thing about this for Dimdim users, and I’m sorry to see my Dimdim web conferencing user account go away. Individuals who used Dimdim for web-conferencing will look toward other web-conferencing solutions (Yugma/Skype, for no-low cost; GoToMeeting, WebEx, Live Meeting, iLinc or others for subscription services)
What about you? What are you looking forward to with the latest acquisition by Salesforce.com?
