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Since last November’s Dreamforce convention, talk regarding Salesforce.com has been largely about Salesforce Chatter, their enterprise social network and collaboration platform. But since the beginning of the New Year they’ve announced their Spring ’10 update, and more recently, the Force.com Visual Process Manager—these updates are naturally less flashy without the weight of a company conference, but they are no less significant for the CRM market.

Visual Process Manager's flow-chart like, drag-and drop interface

Salesforce’s acquisition of Informavores—a call scripting startup in the UK—is the origin of the Visual Process Manager technology. Force.com house the Visual Process Manager, which will help those using Salesforce’s Enterprise and Unlimited editions to create business applications with established set forms, questions, and decision trees. Visual Process Manager leverages a drag-and-drop interface to help users design their business processes. There are four components, one of which is a “wizard builder,” which creates step-by-step guides for end users. The other elements are a process designer, a simulation tool for testing, and a process execution engine.

This is a smart move on several fronts. For starters, it’s going to mean more developers on the Force.com platform. Not that Force.com’s user bass was dwindling, but the Visual Process Manager will certainly be an auspicious addition. There has also been a recent rise in the use and development SaaS Business Process Management (BPM) tools, and Salesforce’s clout in the cloud space implies the Visual Process Manager will be successful.

On another note, we’re curious to see what other acquisition-borne tools Salesforce.com puts forth this year—that is, how they’ll be spending the $500 million they recently raised.