A few days ago SalesForce finally released their version (technically, designed by Persistent) of the Chatter Web Part for SharePoint. I had an opportunity to review this solution last year – and it was this project that compelled me to write my own Chatter Web Part. Why you ask? First, it is heavily SalesForce branded (understandable) which did not work well with our branding. Functionally, it had (and continues to have) a dependency on SSL for your web applications. It was never clear to me why this was a requirement. Sure, if my site was publicly accessible I would want my feed to be secure. But if you have an intranet, you may not be using SSL. Or what if you offload SSL and pass HTTP to your front-ends? Plus, the backend server is making the secure call to SalesForce for you – and that doesn’t require SSL on the web application. Then, it was the overly complex installation – plus multiple web parts for different sites – which in my opinion made it more difficult to deploy and quickly use.

Yes, this web part is free on the AppExchange. I think my version is a lot easier to install, configure, and use. I encourage you to try both and make your own choice.