WebProNews

Tag: enterprise

  • Lexmark Acquires Brainware Parent BDGB Enterprise

    Lexmark announced that it has acquired BDGB Enterprise, a software company based in Luxembourg, which includes Brainware, a U.S. subsidiary. The price tag: $148 million.

    Brainware, which provides data capture and enterprise search solutions, will become part of Lexmark’s Perceptive Software business unit. Brainware CEO Carl Mergele will stay with the company, and report to Scott Coons, Perceptive Software’s president and CEO and Lexmark vice president.

    “Having already been partners with Perceptive Software and powering the IntelliCapture solution, we know that joining our technologies is game changing for our customers,” said Mergele. “Becoming part of Perceptive Software, known for delivering solutions that bring rapid value to customers, allows Brainware to continue doing what it does best.”

    “Brainware’s sophisticated technology brings a powerful set of capabilities that further round out our process and content management offerings, and are especially appealing to large enterprises,” said Coons. “Many of our customers use our technology to manage very high volumes of content. Brainware’s proven accuracy rate in these environments gives our customers an even greater ability to drive cost out of their business and realize an enhanced return on investment from their core business applications.”

    “With the acquisition of Brainware, Lexmark is further strengthening and differentiating our industry-leading managed print services offerings and our end-to-end business process solutions,” said Lexmark CEO Paul Rooke. “Brainware’s innovative intelligent data capture technology will be attractive to our customers across the globe.”

    Brainware has offices in the U.S., U.K., Switzerland and Germany.

  • Microsoft Dynamics CRM For Mobile Coming In Q2

    Microsoft announced a new service update for Microsoft Dynamics CRM, coming in Q2, which will bring mobile access to the product, surely a long overdue feature for users.

    Mobile access is becoming an increasingly important element to just about all web/software services. It’s going to continue to be an important for services to stay competitive. That goes for CRM products. Just a couple weeks ago, for example, at MacWorld iWorld, Elements CRM announced an iPad version.

    Microsoft says Dynamics CRM will be available for “virtually any device with a new cloud-based, cross-platform, native mobile client service for Windows Phone 7, iPad, iPhone, Android and BlackBerry mobile devices.” That’s access to complete functionality of the product, mind you.

    “In today’s hyperconnected world, customers need to be able to access their business-critical data on the device of their choice from wherever they are,” said Dennis Michalis, GM of the product. “These advancements, combined with the strength of the Microsoft platform, make Microsoft Dynamics CRM an obvious choice for any business.”

    The update will also include enhanced social functionality and new enterprise-class features, as well as multiple web browser options (IE, Chrome, Firefox, Safari), the company says.

    Pricing will start at $30 per user, per month. That includes support of up to three devices per user.

    A preview is available here.

  • Firefox 10 Now Available

    Firefox 10 launched today as a silent update so as not to disturb intrepid Web users.

    The update, as we reported yesterday, brings new features to the browser, but nothing worth celebrating over.

    The update features extension improvements with most extensions that work on Firefox 4 working on Firefox 10. It includes support for full-screen Web apps and anti-aliasing for WebGL applications.

    Firefox 10 also debuts the new “Extended Support Release” for businesses. This allows the browser to only download necessary security updates so businesses no longer have to deal with a new browser update every six weeks. The ESR version will change every seven releases, so November will be the next update for those users.

    For those unaware, Firefox changing versions so rapidly is due to Chrome being on the same release schedule. While Internet Explorer is still the most used browser on the Web, Chrome and Firefox are battling neck-and-neck for the number two spot. The sped up release schedule is helping Firefox remain competitive.

    Firefox 10 will be released as a silent update to current users today. If you haven’t used Firefox yet, now is a good time to try it out. It’s available for Windows, Mac and Linux today.

  • IBM Announces Social Analytics Services

    IBM Announces Social Analytics Services

    IBM unveiled today a new set of software and services for social analytics in the enterprise.

    The main software product is IBM Connections for analytics, real-time data monitoring, and collaborative networks through IBM’s SmartCloud services. Included in the new offerings, as described by the company, are:

    • New social analytics software that integrates wikis, blogs, activity streams, email, calendaring and more, and flags relevant data for action. It allows for instant collaboration with one simple click and the ability to build social communities both inside and outside the organization to increase customer loyalty and speed business results.
    • New software that integrates social networking capabilities with enterprise content management to better connect people with information so they can make informed decisions and act quickly.
    • The new IBM SmartCloud for Social Business simplifies access to business-grade file sharing, social networking, communities, online meetings, instant messaging, email and calendar. In addition, IBM SmartCloud for Social Business will deliver a cloud-based productivity suite allowing users to co-edit documents in real-time.
    • New messaging and collaboration software that brings the power of embedded experiences to the Web and mobile devices providing a single point of entry for all business processes.

    “There is boundless opportunity for social business to transform how we connect people and processes, and increase the speed and flexibility of business,” said Alistair Rennie, GM, Social Business at IBM. “A successful social business can break down barriers to collaboration and put social networking in the context of everyday work, from the device or delivery vehicle of your choice, to improve productivity and speed decision-making.”

    IBM also announced the beta release of IBM Lotus Notes and Domino, Social Edition for “acting on any work flow process directly within the email inbox.”

    The company says it intends to support mail, calendaring and contacts in a beta release of IBM Lotus Notes Traveler for Microsoft Windows Phone on Nokia and HTC devices within the first half of the year.

  • Twitter Acquires WhisperSystems

    Twitter Acquires WhisperSystems

    Whisper Systems, a company that provides mobile security products for Android, has been acquired by Twitter. The company’s products, which aim to enterprise-ify phones and tablets, include WhisperCore, WhisperMonitor, Flashback, RedPhone and TextSecure.

    WhisperCore integrates with Android to provide disk encryption, network security tools, encrypted backup, selective permissions, and basic platform management tools. WhisperMonitor works with WhisperCore to provide a firewall. Flashback stores encrypted backups of devices in the cloud. RedPhone provides end-to-end call encryption, and TextSecure is for encrypted texting.

    Twitter’s Ryan Sarver tweeted:

    @rsarver
    Ryan Sarver    Whisper Systems Is Joining Twitter! http://t.co/nRz0h5ho 7 minutes ago via Tweet Button · powered by @socialditto

    @whispersystems
    Whisper Systems    WhisperSystems has been acquired! http://t.co/BsGixWOg 2 hours ago via web · powered by @socialditto

    In a message on the company blog, Whisper Systems says:

    We started Whisper Systems with the goal of improving security and privacy for mobile devices. We were attracted to this not only because we saw it as an opportunity to reinvent the security solutions that never really worked in the PC environment to begin with, but also because the stakes are much higher — due to the nature of mobile devices themselves — and we didn’t like the way that things were looking.

    We ended up tackling the full stack — all the way from application-level solutions at the top of the stack, down through a hardened version of Android, to kernel modifications at the bottom of the stack. Along the way we learned a lot, and developed products that we’re proud of.

    Now that we’re joining Twitter, we’re looking forward to bringing our technology and our expertise into Twitter’s products and services.

    Whisper Systems’ software will remain available for users, but the products will be taken offline temporarily during the transition period.

    Terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed.

  • Should Businesses Fear iPads & Smartphones?

    You know how when something happens in the world and it immediately hits the Internet in near realtime via Twitter or other social media? Say there’s a plane crash. Today, there’s a high probability this will make its way to the web pretty quickly, whether that be in the form of text, photos or videos. This is the era we live in .

    Well, what if your business secrets could end up on the web just as quickly and as easily? Possibly without your even knowing about it until it’s too late?

    Should businesses fear personal mobile devices in the workplace? Share your thoughts on the subject.

    A lot of businesses have secrets that they don’t want getting out, whether that be plans, competitive strategy, private conversations, or any number of things. Now consider all of the things you can do with a smartphone or a tablet. There are apps for all kinds of things that have possibly never even crossed your mind, but the obvious features are cameras microphones, coupled with the fact that it’s just become so common for people to carry these things around.

    The likelihood that you will have to deal with some malicious act related to these capabilities is pretty slim, but there are other security issues that can come into play, when businesses allow employees to work from their personal mobile devices.

    Paranoid yet?

    The reality is that these devices are a part of life now, and a part of business, for that matter. There are so many ways mobile devices can help your business, it would take a lengthy book to really cover it all.

    But research shows a lot of businesses are hesitant to implement policies for employees to work remotely via their own personal devices.

    SecureData commissioned a survey by Vanson Bourne Omnibus, asking 100 IT managers (in large UK enterprises of more than 1,000 employees) of financial services, manufacturing, retail, distribution/transport and commercial companies about the security risks of “Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) schemes.”

    Granted, while this survey is geared toward the enterprise, it’s a subject that can really apply to any size business.

    Here’s one of several interesting graphs from the report:

    policies for mobile devices

    Note the levels of those who appear to have no intention of implementing a policy for employees to work from their personal devices.

    Here are some key stats from the survey:

    • The survey revealed that 25 percent of organisations do not have a policy in place for employees to work remotely via their own personal mobile devices (such as a smartphone or a tablet device) and don’t think it is a priority at the moment.
    • A further 41 percent don’t currently have a policy in place for employees to work remotely via their
      own personal devices, but have said that it is on their agenda to implement.
    • A massive 96 percent of those surveyed selected security risk as one of the top four most important considerations when implementing a policy for employees to work remotely via their own personal mobile device.
    • A total of 49 percent selected security risk as the top concern overall.
    • After security, compliance is the second most important consideration, with 70 percent of respondents ranking it in their top four concerns and 26 percent ranking it the second most important consideration.
    • In total, 69 percent of those surveyed use smartphones and tablet devices not supplied by the company to work remotely at home or whilst on the move (44 percent smartphones and 25 percent tablet devices).
    • A huge 92 percent of employees in the financial sector use their own laptops to work remotely at home or whilst on the move.
    • In total, 37 percent of respondents allow their children (or other members of their household) to use their work device e.g. laptop, smartphone and tablet device.
    • In total 43 percent of respondents state that security concerns would be the main reason for them not allowing children or other household members using their work devices.

    There is a great deal more analysis (and as mentioned, more graphs) in the report. You can read it in its entirety here (pdf).

    Clearly security is a concern. And frankly, even though workers using their personal devices for work can greatly increase productivity (Think about it. Their smartphones are within reach nearly all the time.), it is still possible that their devices are not secure, or that they’re connecting to WiFi networks that are not secure. There’s also the possibility that their device can get lost or stolen, or simply left behind at a bar. Ask Apple about that one.

    Should businesses be worried about employees using their personal smartphones and/or tablets? Tell us what you think.

  • Google and Amazon: The Next Great Tech Rivalry?

    Google and Amazon: The Next Great Tech Rivalry?

    Microsoft and Yahoo have been Google’s main rivals for years. As Google has expanded into more and more product areas, it has taken on plenty of competition in a wide variety of industries. Apple and Facebook are two of its biggest rivals now, but the Amazon/Google competition is emerging as the next great rivalry.

    The companies compete in eBooks. They compete in online retail. Google product search has the ability to send consumers to a lot of sellers of products that Amazon no doubt would rather have people searching for on Amazon.com.

    Google has Google Offers, Amazon has Amazon Local deals, and apparently that’s doing quite well.

    Amazon is now in the tablet market. It runs Android, but Amazon’s version of Android. Amazon even has its own version of the Android Market. In terms of operating systems, the competition might soon even get more fierce as it’s rumored that Amazon wants to buy WebOS from HP.

    With the Amazon Kindle Fire, the company’s tablet, Amazon appears to be going straight for Google’s Chrome jugular. Google has always touted Chrome’s speed, perhaps more than any other feature, but Amazon’s Silk browser, could give it a big run for its money, as it taps into Amazon’s EC2 Elastic Compute Cloud) to optimize the page loading experience. Amazon talks about this here:

    Silk is only for the Kindle Fire for now, but how long do you think that will last? It’s not hard to envision this becoming a straight up competitor to Chrome, Firefox, IE, Safari, etc.

    This week, Google announced some new storage and App Engine offerings that will help it compete with Amazon Web Services. Specifically, Google’s bundle of announcements includes: new enterprise level services and support option for Google App Engine, Google Cloud SQL, Google Cloud Storage with new features and a lower price, and new features for the Google Prediction API.

    Google gives more details about each of these in a post on the Google Enterprise blog. “We are enabling our enterprise customers to build business solutions that take advantage of the computing power and scalability of Google’s cloud services without all the hassles of deployment of applications,” says Group Product Manager Jessie Jiang. “We have been making great progress on Google App Engine, Cloud Storage, and Prediction API. There is more to come, stay tuned.”

    Suffice it to say, that while Google seemingly takes on every major tech and Internet company in one way or another (there may be a few exceptions….so far), it appears that Amazon and Google are well on their way to becoming bigger rivals than ever. It’s going to be fun to watch the different ways in which this competition manifests itself.

    Hopefully businesses and consumers will ultimately be the biggest winners.

    Update: Even as I was writing this, Google announced the Google Commerce Search Partner Program. It’s offering a reseller program to enable tech partners to roll Google Commerce Search into their solutions easily. Resellers will be expected to seek out opportunities to bring Google Commerce Search to existing or new retail clients, Google says. More on this here.

    Update 2: Also some very interesting comments on Amazon vs. Google from a guy who used to work at Amazon and currently works at Google.

  • Google and SAP Partner on Geo-Mapping

    Google and SAP Partner on Geo-Mapping

    Google and SAP announced a partnership today at the AlwaysOn Summit. This will allow customers to pair SAP enterprise analytics with Google Maps and Google Earth in what the companies call an “industry-first collaboration to help customers tackle ‘big data’ with an augmented reality approach.”

    “Using location-based intelligence, customers can slice-and-dice large volumes of information against Google Maps/Earth to get a better understanding of the ‘when’ and ‘where’ of their business,” a representative for SAP tells WebProNews. “For example, with SAP StreamWork, a team of customer support representatives in a consumer packaged goods company could collaborate and pinpoint the location of consumer complaints within specific geographies and make a decision regarding how to address and prioritize resolution.

    “We’re excited to work with SAP to help enterprise customers use Google’s cloud mapping tools with SAP software,” said Dave Girouard, president of Google Enterprise. “This integration will allow our customers to more easily visualize geographic data and make better business decisions.”

    “Today, more and more information is being geo-tagged, and it is unlocking an entirely new dimension for enterprise data,” said Sanjay Poonen, president, Global Solutions at SAP. “SAP’s work with Google marries powerful enterprise software with the world’s most popular mapping platform to create entirely new ways for people to understand and interact with business information. We aim to provide our customers the opportunity to tap into the power of business analytics combined with location intelligence through a geographic view and use rich, interactive analytics to respond to events as they unfold in real time.”

    @businessobjects
    SAP BusinessObjects    #SAP + #Google tackle #bigdata with #sapanalytics + geo-mapping: http://bit.ly/q0glTy #BI4 2 hours ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

    Running down some examples of how organizations might be able to take advantage of the partnership between these two companies, SAP suggests that a telecom operator could use Google Earth and SAP BusinessObjects Explorer to perform dropped-call analysis and pinpoint geo-coordinates of faulty towers. A state department of revenue might overlay household tax income info on a map and group it al the country level to track the highest/lowest tax bases. A mortgage bank might perform risk assessment on its portfolio by overlaying foreclosure and default data with the location of loans on Google Maps. You get the idea.

  • New IBM Platform Helps Businesses Feel Comfortable about Social Media

    New IBM Platform Helps Businesses Feel Comfortable about Social Media

    While there are many benefits involved with social media, there are also a lot of potential risks, especially for regulated industries. Businesses that want the easy way out choose not become involved in social media, which is often to the disappointment of consumers.

    Rene Schimmer, the Offering Manager for Social Software for IBM Collaboration Solutions, told us that shunning social media might not be a long-term option.

    “Avoiding it is not going to be an option for much longer,” he said. “We [IBM] see these tools as a fundamental instrument to work.”

    Is social media becoming a necessity in business? Let us know your thoughts.

    It is completely understandable that businesses are concerned about the risks, but, as Schimmer said, social media is becoming fundamental in just about everything. People today that are hired are not going to be able to abandon all their social media practices and rely solely on telephones and email.

    IBM is very aware of these potential risks, as well as the benefits, and recently expanded its social software portfolio in an effort to better meet business needs. The platform is called IBM Connections and is an offering for social collaboration within a business.

    The main focus of this platform is to help businesses with compliance concerns. For this reason, IBM partnered with Actiance, to bring logging and archiving to the offering. Together, the companies provide a social networking platform with real-time compliance capabilities.

    For example, if someone comments on a wiki, the action is logged. If that same person goes back 5 minutes later and deletes the comment, that action is also logged. In other words, there is always a trace, which is very beneficial when it comes to auditing.

    Schimmer told us that platforms such as this help businesses feel comfortable about using social media. Every business knows there are risks involved, but having a way to manage those risks is comforting.

    “If we can provide a solution that allows organizations to know that their employees cannot circumvent the system, either by intent or just not knowing how to do it properly, that creates that comfort level, so they are able to roll out social systems and work with them,” he said.

  • Prosodic Predicts How Your Social Campaign Will Perform, Says CEO

    Prosodic Predicts How Your Social Campaign Will Perform, Says CEO

    We all know that there is a lot of noise in social media. This noise is not only a result of more social media adoption by brands, but it is also a result of bad content. Unfortunately, noise impacts both consumers and brands.

    Do you believe that brands are pushing too much noisy content? Let us know.

    Although there are many tools and tactics for cutting through the noise, Prosodic, a new startup based in Seattle, recently launched with the goal of helping enterprises with this predicament. The tool is a predictive intelligence platform for brands that need to manage and analyze social media content.

    Leigh Fatzinger, the company’s CEO, told WebProNews that he realized the need for a platform like Prosodic through his work at social media agency Nology Media. As he explained, Nology Media published thousands of Facebook posts for its clients, which made it difficult to manage. He also found that other community managers had this same problem, which is how Prosodic began.

    “Prosodic really is the result of analyzing this space of content and interactions and finding out how you can create… a workflow of an algorithm that helps enterprises make better publishing decisions based on all the content that they’ve published previously,” said Fatzinger.

    “It’s really based on the premise that there are no averages in social media. When a brand should publish and how much they should publish, and what they should publish is dictated by their audience alone… that’s the problem that Prosodic solves.”

    One of the biggest advantages of Prosodic is that it has the ability to predict how the content will perform before it is published. It does this by looking at the brand’s past publishing habits and how the audience interacts with the content based on areas such as comments, @replies on Twitter, and “Likes” on Facebook. The tool also analyzes the audience’s reaction to the time of day the content was pushed out and the type of content whether it be text, video, images, etc. From this information, the algorithm reports a potential outcome.

    Prosodic, additionally, has a permission feature that allows brands to approve content before it is published. Many brands are fearful of social media disasters especially after Marc Jacobs and Chrysler’s Twitter incidents.

    “We don’t want to stifle creativity or slow anything down,” said Fatzinger. “We just want to give enterprises the ability to create a set of rules and standards and then let them develop the processes themselves.”

    He also pointed out that Prosodic was “complimentary” to social monitoring tools such as Radian6 and not a competitor.

  • Google Earth Builder Launched For Businesses

    Google Earth Builder Launched For Businesses

    Google has launched Google Earth Builder, a tool to enable businesses to use Google’s cloud to manage geospatial data, create custom map layers, and share Google Earth/Maps layers.

    Organizations can scale services for traffic spikes, reduce server costs, and control source data and attribution, according to the company.

    “Whether you have terabytes of imagery or just a few basemap layers, now you can create multiple map layers from your data, such as shapefiles of demographic data, spreadsheets of worldwide customer locations and files of your recently acquired imagery for a new development,” says Tarun Bhatnager, Google’s Head of Geo Enterprise Sales. “You can also integrate the map layers with our own imagery basemap, road data, Google Street View, Terrain View, or Directions in order to find your next best store location.”

    “In the enterprise a lot of geospatial data remains trapped on costly servers and inaccessible to those who need it,” Bhatnager says. “We’d like to help free that data and bring the same benefits that consumers have enjoyed for years to businesses and government agencies.”

    If you’re interested in seeing how businesses and government organizations are already using Google Earth and Google Maps, Google has page full of case studies here. Organizations include the Air Force Weather Agency, Toyota Motor Europe, The City and County of Washington DC, Dell, and Apple, to name a few.

    On a related note, Google Earth has been downloaded over 700 million times.

    Earlier this week, Google launched Map Maker in the U.S. This lets users from around the world add and update locations to Google Maps.

  • A Multi-Vendor Approach to Handling Today’s Content Management Requirements

    Here is an interesting report I received from Forrester, Plan your ECM Strategy For Business, Persuasive, Transactional, And Foundational Needs by Stephen Powers and Alan Weintraub with Matthew Brown and Anjali Yakkundi. They note that enterprises are now struggling under increasing volumes of varying types of content (aka multi-channel information overload).

    In the past firms have taken a product-specific approach to their enterprise content management (ECM) strategies: “document management for office docs, web content management for online content, records management for corporate records, and so on.” Now the reports argues when “developing a content strategy, they should consider persuasive, transactional, and foundational content functionality to support specific business use cases.”  They suggest taking a content centric approach rather than a tool centric approach to handle this complexity. This makes sense to me.

    They discuss three types of content: transactional, business, and persuasive. Transactional content often originates outside the enterprise from customers and partners. It often relies on complex workflows or business process management to drive processes. Formats include scanned e-forms, faxes, print streams from back-office applications, and electronic records.

    Business content starts within the enterprise and is part of workers daily tasks. Business content includes office documents, presentations, spreadsheets, e-forms, web content, and mobile content. Persuasive content may originate from many sources. There are many use cases including: “multichannel marketing, lead generation, eCommerce, customer self-service, in-store kiosks, and partner extranets.” Here tools such as web content management come into play.

    The authors provide a useful framework that shows how foundational issues go across these three content types. They the look at how the different tool types fit into this matrix. They conclude that you need to remain flexible as you handle the increasing complexity of content types today. I found it a useful way to think beyond traditional approaches to content management that were operating when I helped implement these systems a few years back.

    Originally published at Portals and KM

  • Office 365 From Microsoft Heads to Public Beta

    Last year, Microsoft introduced Office 365 in limited beta. Now the company has announced the public beta, expanding it into nearly twice as many countries and languages (38 markets and 17 lanugages).

    Office 365 brings together Microsoft Office, SharePoint Online, Exchange Online and Lync Online in a cloud-based service. “More than 100,000 organizations, from independent professionals to large enterprises, have signed up to test it,” a spokesperson for Microsoft tells WebProNews. “70% of the organizations that signed up for the limited beta were small businesses.”

    Microsoft has also launched a contest, where five businesses have the chance to win Office 365, a $50,000 marketing package, and a day’s work from a Microsoft executive at the winner’s business or charity of choice. To enter, businesses must share “inspiring stories” on the Office 365 Facebook page.

    Office 365Microsoft Office 365 is Ready for Work! http://bit.ly/hYKoZc Public Beta begins today, so secure your spot in the beta at www.office365.com, or if you have already signed up, hold tight because your invite is coming soon! In the meatime, check out our contest and share your inspiring story for a chance at $50,000! http://on.fb.me/dL3grj 1 day ago · 121 likes · 11 comments

    There are two versions of Office 365 Beta: Small Business and Enterprise. The small business version is for organizations with up to 25 employees.

    Microsoft also unveiled the Office 365 Marketplace for apps and services. It opened with 100 apps and 400 services from 16,000 Microsoft cloud partners.

    Interestingly, there is some concern out there that Office 365 will put some IT people out of jobs.

    Office 365 will launch worldwide later this year.

    Expect the Google vs. Microsoft competition in the business productivity app area to get more intense.

  • New Platform to Help Brands Curate Social Content

    With all the content online, it is hard for businesses to sort through all the noise and find what they really want. As a result, many content curation services have risen up to help serve this need.

    One such service is Mass Relevance. It is designed especially for enterprises that want to better engage their customers. TweetRiver is the company’s first product that not only sources, curates, and displays content, but it also creates participation around conversations on Twitter.

    The platform runs by a “rule-based algorithm” that allows users to customize for their needs. At this point, Mass Relevance, specifically, targets the entertainment, media, retail, and manufacturing industries.

    The subject of content curation also raises concern for content creators in terms of how their own content can get noticed in the midst of all the other content on the Web. Sam Decker, who is the CEO and Co-founder of Mass Relevance, believes that good content has to have context. Where the content is placed on a page, what is said about it, and how it is displayed and designed are all additional factors that influence whether or not it gets noticed.

    What are your thoughts on content curation and getting noticed in all the noise?

  • What It Means to Federate the Social Web

    What It Means to Federate the Social Web

    Have you heard about the concept of federating the social Web? If not, it is, essentially, the idea of expanding the social experience beyond a specific social network.

    According to Monica Wilkinson, the Engineering Director at Socialcast, the concept has emerged since users want to have the same type of experiences all over the Web.

    “No matter where you go, you want to bring your friends with you and have social contacts,” she said.

    For example, if a user checks in on Foursquare, it shows the activity on Twitter as well. It, ultimately, helps users connect with more people, which give them more information to help as they make decisions.

    As a business solution in this space, Socialcast connects people and applications together to meet business goals. It is an enterprise activity stream engine that helps to fulfill internal goals within a business. It also serves as a brand-monitoring tool.

    Socialcast also integrates into sites such as Microsoft’s SharePoint and Salesforce in order to bring employees together on projects and systems. The tracking aspect of the service gives businesses valuable insights and data about their goals.

    Because the idea of federating the social Web is still new, there are multiple possibilities. At this point, the communication is very unidirectional. Going back to the Foursquare/Twitter example from above, a user cannot respond on Twitter and have the comment appear on Foursquare.

    For this reason, Wilkinson believes a 2-way communication model is the next step. Socialcast is working in this direction and hopes to reach its goal to allow information to truly flow.

    How does the concept of federating the social Web benefit your business?

  • Jive Software Adds Google, Facebook, McAfee Execs to Board

    Google VP of Product Management Sundar Pichai, Facebook VP of Technical Operations Jonathan Heiliger, McAfee President David DeWalt, and Chuck Robel, former Chairman of the Board of McAfee (now part of Intel) have been appointed to the Board of Directors of Jive Software.

    Jive Software, a provider of social business software for the enterprise, announces the news as another company with a similar description made a big announcement today. Salesforce announced the acquisition of Radian6, which powers some recently announced social features of its “Service Cloud 3”.

    “We are thrilled to welcome these forward-thinking leaders to our Board of Directors,” said Jive CEO Tony Zingale. “Jive is at the forefront of innovation in the enterprise with Social Business Software. We are confident that their experience and leadership will enable us to further extend our market leadership and momentum.”

    The appointment of the Jive Board members are being taken as a way to lend credibility to a pending IPO. It’s not a bad list, so credibility shouldn’t be much of an issue.

    @JiveSoftware
    Jive Software    Cheers to that! RT @tonyzingale: Welcome @Facebook, @Google and @McAfee executives to Jive’s BOD! #jivesoftware #socbiz http://ow.ly/4pyPh 1 hour ago via TweetDeck · powered by @socialditto

    “As a current Jive customer, it is clear that Social Business Software is the most important new enterprise application category in a decade,” said David DeWalt. “Jive’s market leadership position, customer base and innovative product, is driving the new way to do business.”

    “There has been limited innovation in enterprise platforms and applications in the last decade,” said Chuck Robel. “Social is taking over the enterprise. Jive is bringing social into the enterprise the right way – securely, at scale, and providing real business value.”

    “Jive is helping modernize how people engage with each other in the workplace to make work better,” said Jonathan Heiliger. Not bad coming from a Facebook exec.

    “Social Business is an attractive market opportunity and is in many ways driving innovation in enterprise software,” said Pichai. “Jive has great vision and insight in the Social Business space and I’m excited to join the team.”

    Jive says the leaders will help guide it on the next phase of growth in the social business software market. I can’t help but wonder if its interests won’t butt up against those of Google’s or Facebook’s in the future – especially Google.

    Google is very focused on both getting into the enterprise and improving its social strategy. For Facebook, it seems like a logical step in the future as its interests continue to overlap more and more with those of Google.

  • Salesforce Acquires Radian6, Social Platform It Was Already Using

    Salesforce Acquires Radian6, Social Platform It Was Already Using

    Salesforce announced that it is acquiring social media monitoring platform Radian6 for $276 million in cash and $50 million in stock. Founders will also get $10 million in stock and $4 million in cash.

    According to Salesforce, Radian6 is used by over half of the Fortune 100, and companies like AAA, Dell, GE, Kodak, Molson Coors, Pepsico, and UPS to monitor, analyze and engage in social media conversation.

    “With Radian6, salesforce.com is gaining the technology and market leader in social media monitoring,” said Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff. “We see this as a huge opportunity. Not only will this acquisition accelerate our growth, it will extend the value of all of our offerings.”

    “Social media has made every business recognize the value of paying attention to the voice of the customer,” added Radian6 CEO Marcel LeBru. “Radian6’s technology is built for the new norm of customer engagement – real time, two way conversations that includes social channels. Joining the salesforce.com team will allow Radian6 to grow faster to meet the demands of our rapidly expanding customer base.”

    Salesforce says the acquisition will accelerate the enterprise’s shift to “Cloud 2” by helping companies better manage the social interactions taking place both inside and outside their companies.

    Salesforce has already been utilizing Radian6. The company recently unveiled its Service Cloud 3 initiative, which involves Facebook, Twitter, and any other social network support via Radian6, so the acquisition makes a great deal of sense. Radian6 product manager Ryan Strynatka told us they were shooting for general availability by August.

    Salesforce Service Cloud 3 Utilizes Radian6The deal is expected to close in Salesforce’s fiscal second quarter ending July 31, so it sounds like it should be done in time for that. It’s already been approved by Radian6’s board of directors and stockholders.

  • Salesforce Service Cloud 3 Unveiled, Social Customer Interaction Emphasized

    Salesforce Service Cloud 3 Unveiled, Social Customer Interaction Emphasized

    It seems like only yesterday that Salesforce was talking up Cloud 2. Now, today, they’ve unveiled Service Cloud 3, the company’s next-generation social contact centers, which will let companies interact with customers on “any social community”. That means Facebook, Twitter, and any other social network via social media monitoring software Radian6. However, it’s just supporting Twitter out of the box, from the sound of it.

    “The explosion of social technologies has changed the game for customer service,” said Alex Dayon, executive vice president of CRM at Salesforce. “Facebook and Twitter taught consumers to expect social customer service in real time.”

    The product also has built-in social analytics. Companies can monitor and manage customer interactions across social channels with real-time reports and customizable dashboards. Salesforce says these things will help agents identify trends and alert managers of issues that are impacting the business.

    The emerging tablet market should play into the always-on social customer interaction approach. Salesforce seems to be pretty hyped up for the iPad 2.

    Service Cloud 3 is generally available today with Twitter support. Salesforce for Facebook is scheduled for the first quarter of fiscal year 2012. Radian6 for Salesforce is scheduled the third quarter of fiscal year 2012. Update: Radian6 product manager Ryan Strynatka says in the comments, “Radian6 for Salesforce – we are shooting for general availability by August (in time for Dreamforce) and will be including support for Facebook as well.”

  • Google Launches Cloud Connect Worldwide

    Google Launches Cloud Connect Worldwide

    Google has announced the worldwide availability of Google Cloud Connect for Microsoft Office. The product was first announced in November, spawned from the company’s acquisition of DocVerse, which specialized in real-time sharing and editing of documents. 

    Cloud Connect lets Office users automatically sync and backup their documents with Google Doc, so they’re always accessible on the web, and able to be shared with others. 

    "Millions of businesses are experiencing radical productivity gains with web-powered tools, and today Google Apps collaboration is ready for every employee," says Google Apps product manager Shan Sinha. "We’re bringing multi-person, simultaneous editing to the Microsoft Word, Excel and PowerPoint applications that coworkers may still need from time to time. More people will be able to achieve a 100% web future entirely in Google Docs after learning the benefits of web-powered collaboration within traditional software."

    "Google Cloud Connect vastly improves Microsoft Office 2003, 2007 and 2010, so companies can start using web-enabled teamwork tools without upgrading Microsoft Office or implementing SharePoint 2010," says Sinha.

    As we discussed upon the original announcement, this is one of many steps Google is taking that could have a significant, if overlooked impact on the company’s overall strategy. The obvious impact is that it should get more people using Google Docs and more businesses using Google Apps. The idea is that for those who are just continuing to use Microsoft Office, Google is providing a way for them to get their feet wet with not only the cloud, but their version of it.  

    With Microsoft being an important competitor to Google (the biggest competitor, according to Google itself, actually), Google needs more people using Google Apps for other reasons as well. Google recently announced the expansion of Google Apps to include most of its products – most of which you need a Google account to use. Many of these same products are also key in Google’s overall strategy for keeping user eyeballs online – a battle, which Facebook is winning, at least some of the time. 

    Google has also introduced what it calls the " 90-Day Appsperience" program, which lets organizations access Google Docs, Google Sites, and Google Cloud Connect for a flat fee for 90 days. More details about that here.

  • Salesforce Launches Chatter.com For Any Business With Company Email Addresses

    Salesforce Launches Chatter.com For Any Business With Company Email Addresses

    Salesforce has launched Chatter.com as a way for businesses to create free, private social networks for their companies. 

    Chatter, the product, has been around for a while now, and is often described as a "Facebook for the enterprise", but it has been part of the company’s Salesforce CRM and Force.com offerings. Now chatter.com is free to anyone with a company email address.

    "Now with Chatter.com, any company can do impossible things as a team," said Salesforce Chairman and CEO Marc Benioff. According to the company, that means: connecting with experts, collaborating with remote employees, easily sharing large files, preparing for sales presentations, managing team projects, discussing confidential topics, getting answers, sharing important info with co-workers, solving customer issues, and brainstorming marketing ideas.

    Chatter.com from Salesforce

    Salesforce will start a TV ad campaign for Chattter.com on Sunday. This will be the company’s first broadcast ads. The ads were directed and produced by will.i.am, who collaborated with the company’s marketing team using the service itself. 

    "During the production of the two commercial spots, we were collaborating on documents, scripts, artwork, downloading, uploading – all securely in the cloud using Chatter," said will.i.am.  "Any task can be solved when you have a team working cohesively."

    Since launching Chatter, Salesforce has launched various incarnations, such as Chatter Mobile and Chatter Mobile for Blackberry. Still, Chatter.com is likely to push Chatter into more mainstream business use.

  • Android Tablets and the iPad’s Lead in the Enterprise

    Pundits have predicted the growing adoption of tablets as a top 10 trend for 2011. According to Mashable, a new Forrester report estimates that 44 million tablets will be sold in 2015, surpassing even laptop sales by nearly 5 million and desktop PC sales over 25 million.

    Android-based tablets are expected to capture a significant share of the overall tablet market and they’re making quite the splash at this year’s Consumer Electronics Show (CES).

    If Twitter buzz is any indication, two Android tablets, the Motorola XOOM and the T-Mobile G-Slate, will be strong competitors to the iPad.

    Tablets in and around the enterprise
    As consumers adopt tablets for home use they will undoubtedly want to use their personal tablets to access enterprise systems from outside of the office.

    Sales teams and employees that already have remote access to enterprise systems will seek to drag their personal tablets onto enterprise IT networks from outside the office.

    Like me, tablet buyers seeking to use personal tablets for occasional work purposes aren’t ready to ditch their work PC or laptop. Rather, I’d like to augment my work machine with my personal tablet so I can access mail, calendar and enterprise web applications when I’m not at work and can’t be bothered turning on my laptop. I’d also like the option of carrying a tablet when travelling versus my Thinkpad or MacBook Pro. It’s important to note that while my tablet is a personal device, one which will be infrequently used for work purposes, the ability to do so did and will factor into my purchase decision.

    IT will resist user requests for accessing enterprise systems from personal tablets, citing enterprise security, administration and management requirements. Device vendors will work to address these enterprise requirements, while balancing against the backlog of consumer focused requirements. And when they do, IT will, at times grudgingly, accept personal tablets onto the network.

    The iPhone and iPad’s growth in the enterprise followed this trend. Android tablet adoption in the enterprise is unlikely to be significantly different.

    The iPad’s enterprise lead over Android
    With this history well known, it’s interesting to note how little attention is being paid to enterprise features by Google or Android device makers. This fact is especially striking considering how far ahead the iPad already is with its enterprise readiness.

    Watch the Android 3.0, aka Honeycomb, preview video, the Motorola XOOM launch video or the T-Mobile G-Slate press release for even a scant mention of enterprise features.

    Scour the Galaxy Tab website or support site to determine its appropriateness as a personal device with which to access enterprise systems. You’ll have to click on “Other Features” and on to “Working Remotely”. Once there, you learn about the Galaxy Tab’s Wifi and 3G connection options. That’s great.

    Now, what about using a Galaxy Tab to connect to your office Cisco VPN? Or what about information for administrators? If relevant information exists on the Galaxy Tab marketing or support site, it’s not easily found.

    For instance, Galaxy Tab users trying unsuccessfully to connect to a Cisco VPN discuss trying an OpenVPN client which requires the user to root their Galaxy Tab. Just imagine IT telling users to root their Android tablet in order to connect to the enterprise network – fat chance indeed.

    In another example, enterprises that wish to use their own Root CA (certificate authority) chain or import an un-trusted public Root CA not in the Android OS firmware are unable to do so. This security-related feature remains an identified Android issue with a medium priority on the issues list.

    The Motorola XOOM website provides no mention of enterprise readiness.

    Now, head on over to the iPad Support site. Right away you’ll notice that “Enterprise” is a support topic listed on the left-hand navigation menu. From here, consumers and IT workers can learn about topics such as ActiveSync configuration, enterprise networking, deployment and security.

    Android tablets ignore the enterprise at their peril
    InfoWorld colleague Ted Samson recently wrote about Apple formally declaring its enterprise intentions. Samson writes:

    But now Apple has apparently come out of the enterprise closet: The company today pushed out a promotional email, entitled “Mac in the Enterprise,” that is chockfull of information for large businesses on how to integrate Macs, iPhones, and iPads into their IT ecosystems.

    The simple and effective manner in which Apple is communicating the iPad’s business-readiness, if even for occasional usage, deserves not just kudos, it begs for imitation from Android device makers.

    Originally published on saviorodrigues.wordpress.com