SalesForce and Jigsaw - Together At Last

Cloud-based CRM SalesForce.com has made a $3 billion entry into the crowd-sourced and cloud-based data services industry with an agreement to acquire Jigsaw. What that means is that data in Jigsaw is going to be available to all SalesForce users.

"Salesforce.com is excited to bring the data services industry into the era of Cloud 2," said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, salesforce.com. "With Jigsaw, we'll make it as easy as Wikipedia to source data, as easy as iTunes to buy data and as easy as Facebook to stay updated as the data changes."

From the release: The acquisition will combine the power of salesforce.com's suite of CRM applications and leading enterprise cloud platform with Jigsaw's cloud-based model for the automation of acquiring, completing and cleansing business contact data.

"Companies are utilizing crowd-sourced data services in the cloud more than ever because it offers the best quality information," said Jim Fowler, CEO, Jigsaw. "This is an exciting opportunity for all of us at Jigsaw, and will help us accelerate our ability to bring cloud-based data services to a wider audience."