Salesforce.com's announcement drew a skeptical response from analyst Kelly Craft, a consultant who specializes in collaboration platform implementations.

"In theory, this is really big news for the industry. But a closer look at the details makes this seem like not much more than an effort to drum up integration business for integration partners," Craft wrote in a . "Forgive my cynicism, but I'm hard-pressed to imagine that customers will get much more than a bare-bones template 'project plan' after a half-day review. Seems like another effort where the promise surpasses the practicalities."

Salesforce.com will also have to contend with SAP's own ongoing efforts to ease access to back-end data, such as the , although that effort is aimed at the development of discrete and lightweight business applications rather than a broad social networking strategy.

It remains to be seen whether Salesforce.com rolls out a similar offer for Oracle customers. Such a thing would directly clash with Oracle's own Social Network service, which was announced earlier this month and is to be available sometime next year.