Salesforce.com is taking steps to combine its acquisitions in social media monitoring and social advertising with its core CRM (customer relationship management) software through a new product called Social.com.

Microsoft is hoping to shove aside rivals such as Salesforce.com and Oracle in the CRM (customer relationship management) software market by linking its own Dynamics CRM application with new capabilities for marketing automation and social media analysis.

Salesforce.com on Wednesday rolled out the Radian6 Social Marketing Cloud, a new set of services that builds on its core CRM (customer relationship management) software.

Salesforce.com is ready to help customers turn their businesses into "social enterprises," CEO Marc Benioff said Thursday during the on-demand software vendor's Cloudforce event in Boston.

Salesforce.com has come a long way from its beginnings as an on-demand CRM (customer relationship management) vendor.

Salesforce.com plans to buy social media monitoring vendor Radian6, whose technology tracks conversations occurring on social sites like Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, the company said Wednesday.