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Intuit, Salesforce.com Team Up to Target Small Businesses

Intuit and Salesforce.com are teaming up to take more small businesses to the cloud. The two companies on Friday are set to announce a partnership that marries Intuit’s accounting software for small businesses with Salesforce.com’s sales-automation offerings–-all handled over the Web.

News Byte

Salesforce Acquires Dimdim

Salesforce.com announced today that it has acquired real-time communication outfit Dimdim for $31 million in cash, making a boldfaced comparison to Facebook by way of backing it up. According to Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff, the acquisition will help Salesforce “deliver to the enterprise the same integrated collaboration and communication experience that made Facebook the world’s most popular Internet site.” No word yet on who will portray Benioff in the movie version.

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Silicon Valley Group Seeks to Give Area an Edge

Cities across Silicon Valley are trying to capture some of the corporate growth unfolding in the region. In San Mateo, that has resulted in a public-private partnership called the Edge. The effort was launched in late 2009 as an initiative of the San Mateo Area Chamber of Commerce and also is funded by companies with offices in the area, such as mutual-fund company Franklin Templeton and online software company Salesforce.com Inc.

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Salesforce Turns Microsoft Stunt to Own Advantage

Tech companies often aim guerilla marketing at their rivals’ events. Salesforce.com’s big confab this week proved no exception, but the company managed to twist at least one attack back on the attacker.

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Salesforce.com Shares Jump After Hours On Strong Q3 Results

Salesforce.com shares are trading higher after hours on solid results for its fiscal third quarter ended October 31.

Patent Troll/Alley Thug Pleased With Salesforce.com Patent Suit Settlement

All that bluster and bravado and in the end, Salesforce.com chose to settle its patent dispute with Microsoft rather than go to the mattresses. On Wednesday afternoon the two companies said they had resolved the patent-infringement battle that prompted Salesforce.com CEO Mark Benioff to brand Microsoft a “patent troll” and “alley thug.”

Get ’em, Boies: Salesforce Countersues Microsoft

Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff says Microsoft is a patent troll. Looks like it takes one to know one. On Thursday, the company answered Microsoft’s charges of patent infringement with patent-infringement charges of its own.

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Benioff's Philanthropic Shift, in His Own Words

Salesforce.com founder and billionaire Marc Benioff, in an exclusive interview with the Wall Street Journal, announced a decision he and his wife have made to focus their philanthropy for the next 10 years on a new medical center in San Francisco. The plan, which kicks off with a $100 million donation, is a bet that a huge injection of capital in one organization can spark breakthroughs in children’s medicine over the next decade.

Salesforce.com CEO on Microsoft Suit: What’d You Expect From a Patent Troll?

Microsoft’s patent infringement suit against Salesforce.com has drawn a scathing response from Marc Benioff, the customer relationship management software provider’s mercurial CEO. During a company conference in Singapore, Benioff slagged the software giant for filing the suit, branding it a patent troll.

Salesforce.com Honored With Rare Microsoft Patent-Infringement Suit

In a January Securities and Exchange Commission filing, Salesforce.com listed among its risk factors “a communication from a large technology company alleging that we were infringing upon some of their patents.” The company didn’t identify the source of that communication or the extent of its allegations, only that the two were in discussions and no litigation had yet been filed. Well, on Tuesday litigation was filed–by Microsoft.

Tech Firms Turn to Debt

Dell: Who You Gonna Buy?

Excessive Salesforce

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