Salesforce.com will include some new analytics capabilities at no additional cost with the Enterprise and Unlimited editions of its CRM (customer relationship management) software, following complaints from customers who argued that the features should have been used to fill long-standing gaps in the products' core functionality, not sold separately.

Oracle executives gave a more detailed picture of their plans to integrate technologies gained through October's $1.5 billion acquisition of RightNow, maker of cloud-based software for customer service through the Web, social networks and contact centers.

Salesforce.com on Tuesday unveiled a new SaaS (software as a service) help-desk application called Desk.com that can reach end users through social networks like Facebook and Twitter.

Salesforce.com customers are sounding off about the fact that an upcoming Analytics Edition of the CRM (customer relationship management) software will have an additional price tag, saying that the functionality it includes should be part of their base subscriptions.

It's a stretch to call 2011 a truly transformative year for enterprise software, given all the old warts that remain, from large-scale IT project failures to creaky legacy systems that will take years and great expense to replace with the latest-and-greatest.

Oracle's $1.5 billion purchase of cloud software vendor RightNow Technologies took another step forward as a vast majority of RightNow shareholders approved the deal.

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