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Edition: U.S. Article Comments (0) Follow Reuters Facebook Twitter RSS YouTube Read Roadside clue becomes focus of Holly Bobo search 1:09pm EDT Iran says it has detected second cyber attack 5:55am EDT Five women brutally murdered in Mexico beach resort 23 Apr 2011 REFILE-GLOBAL MARKETS-Silver slide boosts dollar, drags on oil 1:31pm EDT "Water for Elephants" a lost opportunity 8:19am EDT Discussed 134 Texas governor calls for prayers for rain 133 Obama sees no magic bullet to push down gas prices 64 U.S. sends drones to Libya as battle rages for Misrata Watched NATO jets bomb Gaddafi compound 6:27am EDT Gunfire and tanks in Syria Sun, Apr 24 2011 Chernobyl Legacy 6:24am EDT Analysis: On Cloud 2: making fans of customers on social media Tweet Share this By Siddharth Cavale BANGALORE (Reuters) - In May 2008, a blog post caught computer maker Dell Inc by surprise: popular tech blog Gizmodo had broken news about Dell's Inspiron 910 mini-notebook -- months ahead of its launch -- after seeing CEO... Email Print Related News India's TCS eyes buys in Germany, Japan 10:16am EDT Exclusive: Apple to beat Google on cloud music: sources Thu, Apr 21 2011 Amazon cloud disruption hits some startups Thu, Apr 21 2011 At Facebook headquarters, Obama seeks 2008 energy Thu, Apr 21 2011 F5 Networks sees strong Q3; allays Japan fears Wed, Apr 20 2011 Analysis & Opinion Tech wrap: Apple beats Google to the music cloud The cloud is not just about storage Related Topics Technology » Media » Stocks By Siddharth Cavale BANGALORE | Mon Apr 25, 2011 2:39pm EDT BANGALORE (Reuters) - In May 2008, a blog post caught computer maker Dell Inc by surprise: popular tech blog Gizmodo had broken news about Dell's Inspiron 910 mini-notebook -- months ahead of its launch -- after seeing CEO Michael Dell toting the notebook at an industry conference. Instead of staying mum, Dell saw an opportunity in the frenzied online buzz to track what was being said about the notebook and gauge the level of potential users' expectations. And it paid off. Dell realized potential customers were planning to pass up a competitor's projects for the new Dell Mini 9; the social media chatter was extending the buying cycle and driving demand. (here) A combination of social media and traditional customer relations management -- social CRM -- is allowing companies like Dell to track customer conversations, react swiftly to issues they raise, gain insight into their needs and interact with them. "The (social CRM) market is over $1 billion in social business solutions this year and is growing at 30-40 percent," said Michael Fauscette, analyst at research house IDC. Companies that provide customer relationship management services on the Internet, or 'cloud' services, are alive to the opportunity and are snapping up firms that offer social media monitoring services. This marriage of social media, such as Facebook, Twitter, and blogs, with the 'cloud' -- a term that refers to the shift to providing software, computing power and data storage on the Internet -- has been dubbed Cloud 2.0. Last month, Salesforce.com bought Canada-based Radian6, which counts Dell, Kodak and PepsiCo among its customers, for $326 million. Smaller rival RightNow Technologies bought HiveLive in late 2009, and SuccessFactors last year bought out CubeTree. CRM vendors' spending on social software to support sales, marketing and customer service processes will top $1 billion worldwide within two years, IT research firm Gartner estimates. That figure compares to a forecast of more than $12 billion for overall spending on CRM software in 2012, meaning social CRM will account for around 8 percent of total CRM spending next year, double this year's level, Gartner said. Given how so-called cloud stocks have performed, investors appear receptive to companies making these acquisitions to accelerate growth in new areas like social media. Shares of Salesforce rose 6 percent after its Radian6 news, and Successfactors gained 8 percent after buying CubeTree. Industry analysts say cloud computing projects tend to generate quick returns, allowing companies to quickly recoup what they spend on the projects and see tangible benefits to their businesses. INTEREST IS THERE "I bet a lot of Salesforce's peers are looking at this as well ... it looks like a lot of them are slow or are confused about social CRM, which they say is still in its infancy," said Lyle Fong, CEO of Lithium Technologies, which provides similar social media monitoring solutions to Radian6, and is cited by analysts as a potential acquisition target. Lithium, which used to provide Internet traffic monitoring, bought Scout Labs last year and transformed itself into a social media monitoring service. IDC's Fauscette sees Oracle and Salesforce -- which was founded by CEO Marc Benioff in 1999, when he left Oracle -- as potential buyers for Lithium Technologies. "I'm not sure Salesforce's acquisition of Radian6 indicates a broader trend of consolidation in the industry," said Subha Rama, senior analyst with ABI Research. "However, it does demonstrate that companies are looking to understand the return on investment from their social media initiatives." As this capability is better delivered from the cloud, you might see software-as-a-service (SaaS) providers buying smaller analytics firms to fill a skills gap, Rama said. "I don't think IBM will do a buy ... they already have an in-house solution, but Oracle is definitely going to look to acquire some products in this space," she said. Lithium Tech's Fong reckons all the social media monitoring companies will be bought out in the next year. "All the big ones are already gone ... that space will disappear as a stand-alone space very shortly," he said. (Reporting by Siddharth Cavale in Bangalore; Editing by Unnikrishnan Nair and Ian Geoghegan) Technology Media Tweet this Share this Link this Digg this Email Reprints We welcome comments that advance the story directly or with relevant tangential information. We try to block comments that use offensive language, all capital letters or appear to be spam, and we review comments frequently to ensure they meet our standards. If you see a comment that you believe is irrelevant or inappropriate, you can flag it to our editors by using the report abuse links. Views expressed in the comments do not represent those of Reuters. Comments (0) Be the first to comment on reuters.com. Add yours using the box above. 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