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Salesforce.com has unveiled its Salesforce Communities to enable any enterprise to create private social communities to connect with customers and partners. The community platform will combine social networking features such as profiles, real-time feeds, trending topics, recommendations and influence measurement, with the business information and processes in Salesforce.

As a result, enterprises can deliver collaboration and productivity through custom branded communities. "Salesforce Communities will enable companies to build stronger, more valuable relationships with customers, partners and employees through custom communities - designed to address and support specific business needs," said Mary Wardley, vice president of CRM and Enterprise Applications at IDC.

"When delivered within the context of the business process of Salesforce, Communities has the potential to facilitate strategic collaboration across enterprises and with customers and partners above the capabilities of online peer communities, which have the tendency to be either entirely conversational or entirely transactional."

"Our goal was to build deeper relationships with our mid-size business partners across the world, and be seen as builders, not just bankers," said Ian Forrest, vice president of Global Marketing at GE Capital. "With Access GE built on Salesforce Communities, we have deployed more than 50 custom communities, leading to stronger partnerships with companies." 

Access GE is a community where mid-market CEOs and CFOs tap into the expertise of their peers and of GE Capital employees. Executives can connect to peers with similar needs or shared experiences, and they can discuss topics of mutual interest. The dynamic, social conversations on Access GE reduce the time it takes for clients to get the answers or information they're seeking.

Salesforce Communities is scheduled to be available in limited pilot in fall 2012. It will be generally available in the second half of 2013. Pricing of Salesforce Communities will be announced at general availability.