Salesforce.com Completes Acquisition of Buddy Media

SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 13, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Salesforce.com [NYSE: CRM], the enterprise cloud computing (http://www.salesforce.com/cloudcomputing/) company, today announced that it has completed its acquisition of Buddy Media, the world's leading social media marketing platform. With the close of the acquisition, the Buddy Media team joins the Salesforce Marketing Cloud.

(Logo: http://photos.prnewswire.com/prnh/20050216/SFW105LOGO)

Comments on the News

• "Salesforce.com now has the number one players in social listening and marketing – Radian6 and Buddy Media," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "With the rapid growth in technology spending by CMOs projected over the next five years, our Marketing Cloud leadership will allow us to capitalize on this massive opportunity."
• "Social media has caused the biggest transformation in marketing since the Mad Men era, causing CMOs to completely re-think their strategies," said Marcel LeBrun, SVP of Salesforce Radian6. "By bringing together market leaders Radian6 and Buddy Media, we are doubling down on the Salesforce Marketing Cloud to provide CMOs with the ability to manage the entire social marketing lifecycle."
• "Buddy Media's mission is to eliminate the current state of anarchy in social marketing," said Michael Lazerow, co-founder and CEO, Buddy Media. "With the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, marketers will be able to unify their efforts to better organize their teams, optimize their social programs and deliver real business results."

Buddy Media – The World's Leading Social Media Marketing Platform
Founded in 2007, Buddy Media started as an idea to empower chief marketing officers (CMOs) and agencies to organize their teams and optimize their social media marketing programs. The Buddy Media platform allows customers to publish content, place and optimize social advertising and measure the effectiveness of social media marketing programs. As a result, customers can determine which content is driving the most engagement, test different strategies and understand which campaigns are delivering the greatest return on investment. Leveraging Buddy Media's award-winning social media marketing platform, companies can connect and engage with more than a billion customers across Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Twitter, YouTube and more.

With 8 of the top 10 advertisers as clients, Buddy Media is the clear leader in social media marketing. The company currently has nearly 1,000 customers, including major global brands like Ford, Hewlett Packard, and L'Oreal and the world's largest marketing agency groups such as IPG (Interpublic Group), Omnicom, Publicis and WPP. Buddy Media is the only company to be named a charter Facebook Preferred Marketing Developer, Google Engagement Solutions partner and LinkedIn Certified Developer.

The Salesforce Marketing Cloud – Transforming Marketing for the Social Era
The marketing industry is undergoing the biggest transformation it's seen in 60 years, and it's all being driven by the unprecedented growth of social networks. Today's leading brands are looking to completely transform their traditional marketing strategies for the social era. Industry analysts predict that CMOs will surpass CIOs in spend on technology within the next five years¹ and that social advertising will be the largest growth area of online advertising by 2013².

By combining Buddy Media, the world's leading social media marketing platform, with Salesforce Radian6, the world's leading social media listening platform, salesforce.com will deliver the first comprehensive Marketing Cloud that will allow customers to listen, engage, gain insight, publish, advertise and measure social marketing programs. With the Salesforce Marketing Cloud, CMOs will be empowered to manage the entire social marketing lifecycle. Delivered by salesforce.com, the Marketing Cloud seamlessly integrates a company's social marketing into its sales and service programs.

Salesforce.com plans to showcase the Marketing Cloud at its upcoming Dreamforce event. Dreamforce 2012 is the industry's largest cloud computing and enterprise technology event, welcoming more than 70,000 registered attendees to experience the power of the social enterprise. With more than 650 sessions and 350 cloud companies in the expo, attendees can participate in interactive sessions, hands-on training with cutting-edge technology, thousands of live demos and unparalleled networking. In addition, Dreamforce welcomes special guests Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group; Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric; Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State; Tony Robbins, Entrepreneur, Author & Peak Performance Strategist; and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dreamforce 2012 offers attendees everything they need to succeed as a social enterprise in four days, under one roof.

About Salesforce.com
With more than 100,000 customers, salesforce.com is the enterprise cloud computing company that is leading the shift to the social enterprise. Social enterprises leverage social, mobile and open cloud technologies to put customers at the heart of their business. Based on salesforce.com's real-time, multitenant architecture, the company's platform and application services allow customers to:

• Create employee social networks with Salesforce Chatter, Salesforce Rypple and Salesforce Force.com.
• Develop customer social networks with the Salesforce Sales Cloud, Salesforce Data.com, Salesforce Service Cloud, and Salesforce Site.com.
• Connect with customers on public social networks with Salesforce Heroku and Salesforce Radian6.
• Empower small business to become social enterprises with Salesforce Desk.com and Salesforce Do.com.
• Extend a company's social enterprise with apps from the leading enterprise app marketplace, AppExchange.
• Run apps on Database.com, the first social enterprise database.

Any unreleased services or features referenced in this or other press releases or public statements are not currently available and may not be delivered on time or at all. Pricing and availability are subject to change. Customers who purchase salesforce.com applications should make their purchase decisions based upon features that are currently available. Salesforce.com has headquarters in San Francisco, with offices in Europe and Asia, and trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker symbol "CRM." For more information please visit http://www.salesforce.com, or call 1-800-NO-SOFTWARE.

About Dreamforce
Dreamforce 2012 is the industry's largest cloud computing and enterprise technology event, welcoming more than 70,000 registered attendees to experience the power of the social enterprise. With more than 650 sessions and 350 cloud companies in the expo, attendees can participate in interactive sessions, hands-on training with cutting-edge technology, thousands of live demos and unparalleled networking. In addition, Dreamforce welcomes special guests Sir Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group; Jeff Immelt, CEO of General Electric; Gen. Colin Powell, former Secretary of State; Tony Robbins, Entrepreneur, Author & Peak Performance Strategist; and The Red Hot Chili Peppers. Dreamforce 2012 offers attendees everything they need to succeed as a social enterprise in four days, under one roof.

Sources:
₁ Gartner http://my.gartner.com/portal/server.pt?open=512&objID=202&mode=2&PageID=5553&resId=1871515&ref=Webin
₂ eMarketer Forecast Sept 2011 http://www.emarketer.com/PressRelease.aspx?R=1008629]

Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements
This press release may be deemed to contain forward-looking statements about salesforce.com and Buddy Media, including statements that involve risks and uncertainties concerning salesforce.com's acquisition of Buddy Media, the expected relative spending by CMOs and CIOs in the future, expectations regarding market opportunities, size and growth, the combined capabilities of the companies' products, transformations in marketing, anticipated product information, capabilities, scale and strategy, including the social media listening and marketing market, the benefits of the acquisition, salesforce.com's social enterprise strategy, Marketing Cloud and its impact, market and industry trends, and general business outlook. When used in this press release, the words "can," "will," "intends," "expects," "is expected," similar expressions and any other statements that are not historical facts are intended to identify those assertions as forward-looking statements. Any such statement may be influenced by a variety of factors, many of which are beyond the control of salesforce.com or Buddy Media, that could cause actual outcomes to be materially different from those projected, described, expressed or implied in this press release due to a number of risks and uncertainties. Potential risks and uncertainties include, among others, the anticipated synergies and benefits of the combined companies may not be achieved, the combined companies may experience delays, unexpected costs or be unable to complete integration activities in a timely manner, if at all, the possibility that key personnel of Buddy Media may not be retained by salesforce.com, responses from competitors, customers, users and partners, general economic conditions in the markets in which either company does business, and the possibility that salesforce.com or Buddy Media may be adversely affected by other economic, business, and/or competitive factors.   

In addition, please refer to the documents that salesforce.com files with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Forms 10-K, 10-Q and 8-K. These filings identify and address other important factors that could cause salesforce.com's financial and operational results to differ materially from those contained in the forward-looking statements set forth in this press release. You are cautioned to not place undue reliance on forward-looking statements, which speak only as of the date of this press release. Neither salesforce.com nor Buddy Media is under any duty to update any of the information in this press release.

Copyright (c) 2012 salesforce.com, inc. All rights reserved. Salesforce and the "no software" logo are registered trademarks of salesforce.com, inc., and salesforce.com owns other registered and unregistered trademarks. Other names used herein may be trademarks of their respective owners.

SOURCE salesforce.com