He also told Computerworld UK that the argument that social platforms for business will replace email in the future is 'weak'.

Infor, the third largest enterprise applications provider in the market, has developed its own social platform, dubbed Mingle, which it is currently piloting internally and with a few select customers.

However, unlike Salesforce, which also invested in Infor earlier this year, Mingle isn't a separate social platform, it is instead tightly integrated with other applications and businesses processes. Phillips argues that this will drive usage rates in the enterprise.

"We have developed a social platform that is different from other companies. Instead of having a completely separate platform that people just communicate with, we have embedded it as part of our application," he said.

"What you need when you are solving a business problem is the context, you need to be able to share the data, the customer order, the invoice, the asset - whatever is involved. You also need to know who has the authority and knowledge to work on any particular problem."