The cloud-computing giant, Salesforce, announced the purchase of social-media company Buddy Media for almost $700 million.
Salesforce faces increased competition from Oracle and other software pwerhouses. Oracle is ready to announce its Public Cloud service, most likely launching it this week. With launch of Oracle Public Cloud, Oracle is inducing a major technological challenge to Salesforce.
Buddy Media focuses on social network marketing, selling tools to manage business accounts across multiple social networks. They also host all the software with cloud computing. It claims more than 100,000 customers.
This is the largest acquisition of a New York City tech company in the last five years.
“Social media has caused the biggest transformation in marketing causing companies to completely rethink their strategies,” says Marcel LeBrun, senior vice president of Salesforce’s social-media engagement service.