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In its attempt to even approach Salesforce.com in the CRM market, Oracle may have made an important leap.  With its latest launch - Oracle CRM on Demand Release 15 - the company has integrated some social networking capabilities.

 Oracle.com

The word "collaboration" comes up again and again in official documents.  Users are supposed to be able to work together (and find each other in the first place) in a manner that's both intuitive and easy.  Anyone who's working at different times or from out of the office should find it easy to stay up to date, as well.

Of course, since the product just went out, we'll have to wait a bit to find out how random users react.  But included in a press release was a quote from Business Link North East's Head of Business Systems.  He stated, "The collaborative Social CRM capabilities in Oracle CRM On Demand Release 15 meshes extremely well with Business Link North East's goals to provide our customers with the services they need in a timely manner . . ."

Oracle also released the Oracle Mobile Sales Assistant this week.  Designed to work on the BlackBerry platform, it could be a big hit with frequent travelers.

Finally, although it had a rough time yesterday, Oracle's stock is up 2.5 percent so far this morning.