Collaboration: June 2009 Archives

RollStream, provider of enterprise community management solutions, announced the launch of its Web 2.0 Onboarding and Information Management solution, enabling customers to automate the registration of new suppliers and approval of changes to business terms, contracts and key credentials for existing suppliers or vendors. RollStream’s Onboarding solution enables suppliers, vendors or distributors to be added to a partner community via intelligent online forms. The role-based approval workflow spans the entire process from supplier registration to internal employee handoffs. RollStream’s collaborative supplier information management capability enables suppliers to manage their own profiles and initiate changes to their information themselves, but ensures that such changes are tied to a customer-defined approval process, allowing visibility and management of supplier master data. Since RollStream Onboarding is directly tied to a comprehensive collaboration platform, users are able to find existing suppliers using search capabilities before submitting duplicate registration requests. Once the profile is complete, customers can communicate and interact with suppliers based upon type, category or classification. With RollStream’s open API Interface for ERP and Content Management, all supplier information, data and credentials can be synchronized with master systems of record. http://www.rollstream.com

Bluenog announced the availability of Bluenog ICE 4.5, an Enterprise 2.0 application development platform built on pre-integrated open source collaboration, content management, presentation and reporting projects. ICE 4.5's Integrated Collaborative Environment of content management, portal, and business intelligence software now includes an Enterprise Wiki, secure group calendaring features and enhanced centralized administration. ICE 4.5 aggregates functionality from over a dozen open source projects into a single commercial product, with additional integration and features, all supported by Bluenog. This pre-integration helps eliminate the need for developers to manually code features such as security permissions and access to legacy systems across all their applications. Based on the JSPWiki open source project, ICE 4.5 allows users to create and share content through a portal interface. Stored in a secure, enterprise-wide repository, all Wiki pages can be searched, with access permissions defined at the Wiki and page level. ICE 4.5 also introduces an enterprise group calendaring application based on the open source project, Bedework. Bluenog has extended Bedework with secure, restricted access to calendars based on user, group and role. Another feature introduced in ICE 4.5 is ICE Central. This Central Administrative Console includes an improved interface for handling user groups and permissions across ICE's CMS and Portal components. Additionally, its propagation tool enables bulk import/export of ICE CMS Content Types and Content Data assets. The new release extends ICE's CMS functionality with an enhanced rich text editor and configurable HTML cleaner. These new features allow for a more customizable, browser friendly Ajax-compatible style. Bluenog ICE 4.5 will be generally available June 30, 2009. Bluenog ICE 4.5 is available via annual subscription and includes 9x5 support. Priced per-server rather than per-CPU or per-user. http://www.bluenog.com/

Zoho announced Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint which lets users work with Zoho online collaborative productivity applications to create, view, and edit files stored in Microsoft SharePoint. Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint is delivered as an add-on that installs on top of Microsoft SharePoint 2007 and 2003. Once installed, Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint lets users working in Microsoft SharePoint view, edit, and create documents, spreadsheets, and presentations in Microsoft Office formats, but using Zoho online applications. When a user clicks on a file in Microsoft SharePoint, the options will include “Edit in Zoho Editor” and “View in Zoho Editor.” The Edit option opens the file for editing in a Zoho editor within Microsoft SharePoint - either Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, or Zoho Show, depending upon the file selected. The view option opens the file for viewing in appropriate Zoho applications within Microsoft SharePoint. The user must be connected to the Internet to access Zoho applications. Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint enables multiple users to work collaboratively on the same document at the same time, seeing each other's changes instantly. That same functionality is available in online Zoho applications. Zoho Office for Microsoft SharePoint is available today as a 30-day free trial version. After the trial period, users may buy an annual subscription for $24/user. A monthly subscription is also available for $3/user. http://www.zoho.com

Open Text (NASDAQ:OTEX) (NASDAQ:TSX:) (NASDAQ:OTC) announced another part of its Enterprise 2.0 strategy with a new software offering, Open Text Social Media, the latest addition to the Open Text ECM Suite. The solution offers a social media application that gives people ways of working productively together through the Web and mobile devices, while also meeting security and compliance demands by being integrated with a company's wider ECM system. Open Text Social Media gives organizations a way to marry social media technology to an enterprise-ready content management infrastructure. The new solution adds to Open Text's collaboration products offered in the Open Text ECM Suite, providing a combination of document centric collaboration solutions and a new solution that connects people to people to content in social networks designed for the enterprise. Open Text Social Media also helps meet the demands of mobile knowledge workers who demand mobile solutions that enable them to access key corporate systems. Open Text Social Media provides native mobile applications for Apple iPhone and RIM BlackBerry devices initially, with additional device support planned. Open Text Social Media will be generally available in July, 2009. http://www.opentext.com

IBM (NYSE:IBM) announced its newest cloud service, LotusLive Connections, which combines business social networking with collaboration tools. LotusLive Connections helps individuals, departments and small businesses tap into the intellectual resources and capabilities that previously have only been accessible to large enterprises. Using core elements of IBM's on-premise Lotus Connections social software, LotusLive Connections connects colleagues, partners, suppliers and customers from within and beyond firewalls. LotusLive Connections is meant to simplify working together, making it easier to identify and work with experts from any company online with the flexibility, convenience and affordable pricing associated with multi-tenant cloud services. Instant messaging, file sharing and activities are all instantly accessible for use with LotusLive networks. For example, a team planning a project can create a group around the project, including vendors from outside their company. Together they can build a project plan using Activities and post and share associated files. Comments can be made and tasks tracked in the same service. All participants are kept up-to-date without having to hunt through email for the latest documents. Networking, sharing and collaborating are all integrated in LotusLive Connections. LotusLive Connections will be available on June 30, 2009. http://www.lotuslive.com/connections

nGenera announced four new end-to-end Collaborative Enterprise Management Solutions. The company also announced the release of nGenera Collaboration Platform 3.0, a cloud-based platform that is compatible with Microsoft's SharePoint and Google's OpenSocial, and hosts a suite of collaborative applications that power nGenera's CEM Solutions. The new solutions are: nGen Enterprise Collaboration - Build a collaboration roadmap by identifying high-value management initiatives within their enterprise and deploying them on a collaboration platform; nGen Collaborative Selling - Build a collaborative selling channel across internal sales pursuit teams and external sales channels, leveraging Sales 2.0 processes and technologies; nGen Customer Experience - Deploy collaborative processes to define, create, measure and continuously improve the customer experience, and; nGen Talent Management - Implement transformational approaches for managing the talent base of their organizations. In addition to the announcement of CEM Solutions, nGenera also released version 3.0 of nGenera Collaboration Platform, a cloud-based platform that: offers widgets that provide the full range of core collaboration-enabling components; provides global services for user, security, search and storage management; is compliant with OpenSocial standard to enable easy integration of third-party applications, including Google Wave, Twitter, LinkedIn, Facebook and others; and integrates with Microsoft Sharepoint versions 2003 and 2007. nGen Collaboration and nGenera's CEM Solutions are available today. http://www.ngenera.com

Socialcast announced that its basic service, including corporate administration features, is available to companies at no charge for an unlimited number of employees and guest users. Free networks will be email domain-based, allowing all employees within a company to sign up and interact with colleagues instantly. Socialcast’s free offering includes all of the features in its current proven platform such as real-time microblogging, social networking, and administration tools. New free features include: Company-wide domain-based networks; Company administration (such as user management and basic site customization) and data "claiming" rights on all networks; A real-time track feature that allows users to customize activity streams based on subjects, people, groups, and topics, and: Accessibility tools such as a desktop application and enhanced email integration. Companies and employees can sign up for Socialcast online. IT professionals and other official company administrators can claim administration rights to their company’s networks via the website as well, giving instant user management to the company for free. http://www.socialcast.com

Inmagic introduced Inmagic Presto 3.1, the latest version of the company’s Social Knowledge Management platform with new Microsoft SharePoint interoperability capabilities. The compatibility helps users to augment and leverage existing infrastructure and technology investments, extracting additional value from systems already in place, without compromising access to content or straining time, budget, or human resources. Presto 3.1 uses Web Parts technology that allows the search parts on the Presto homepage to be embedded and used in a SharePoint deployment. A new Web Services API lets SharePoint communicate with Presto to create, replace, update, and delete records. Presto also complements SharePoint’s social functionality with “content centric” social capabilities that are searchable and indexable, with built-in controls that can both enable and disable social features for specific user groups. Other benefits of Presto 3.1 include: enhanced interoperability with existing IT investments, improved collaboration through enhanced social capabilities, faster information discovery for improved individual and organizational productivity, and improved content quality and access. Inmagic Presto 3.1 will be generally available in Q3 of 2009. http://www.Inmagic.com

Adobe Systems Incorporated (Nasdaq:ADBE) announced Acrobat.com has moved out of public beta and will offer two new paid subscription services that add capacity and capabilities for intensive business use. Adobe also provided a look into the future of Acrobat.com. Planned features include shared team workspaces and smartphone access, as well as a spreadsheet-like application, Acrobat.com Tables, which joins the recently announced Presentations application on Acrobat.com Labs. Both Premium offerings include Adobe phone and Web support programs. The Premium Basic service includes Adobe ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to five participants and online conversion of 10 uploaded documents to PDF per month. The Premium Plus service includes ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to 20 participants and unlimited online creation of PDF files. The free service will continue to offer Adobe Buzzword online word processing, ConnectNow Web meeting capacity for up to three participants, and online creation of up to five PDF files. Adobe also announced the preview release of Acrobat.com Tables, a spreadsheet-like application that is available immediately for free sign-up as a public beta, joining the Acrobat.com Presentations application on Acrobat.com Labs. Acrobat.com Tables provides people with a new way to work with others on data-intensive documents, such as task lists, schedules, contacts, budgets and sales numbers, that are typically created and shared in spreadsheets or simple databases. People can work with others on the same table at the same time, without the worry of version control or e-mailing spreadsheets back and forth. The Premium Basic subscription is available for US $14.99/month, or US $149/year. The Premium Plus subscription is available for US $39/month, or US $390/year. Until July 16, 2009, Adobe is offering US $15 off the Premium Basic annual plan, and US $50 off the Premium Plus annual plan. Initially, both subscriptions are available from the Adobe.com online store in North America only. The preview release versions of Acrobat.com Tables and Presentations are available for free sign-up on Acrobat.com Labs at http://labs.acrobat.com. http://www.adobe.com

Content Circles, a provider of distributed content management and collaboration solutions, and Alfresco Software announced a partnership to bring to market a new content management and collaboration solution to serve distributed teams. The new solution, a Connector to integrate Alfresco Enterprise Content Management system and Content Circles distributed team collaboration SaaS, enables distributed teams to securely share, collaborate, track and manage content within and across companies, working online or offline. Content Circles uses a unique hybrid web/peer-to-peer (p2p) approach to make distributed team collaboration across companies seamless, secure and auditable. By automatically encrypting, replicating and synchronizing content across only team members’ computers, Content Circles keeps everyone on the same page while providing confidentiality and security. As a “secure bridge” between Alfresco Enterprise Content Management system and external team members, Content Circles also keeps track of all activity on content originating from Alfresco and provides complete auditability for compliance and regulatory purposes. To securely collaborate on documents in Alfresco with external team members, a user of Alfresco first downloads and subscribes to Content Circles, a simple one-time process that takes a few minutes to complete. The user then creates a ‘Circle’ (workspace) for collaboration and invites others to collaborate in the Circle. The user then simply drags in relevant documents from the Alfresco repository into the Circle to make them instantly accessible to all invitees to the Circle. The content management capabilities of Content Circles then allow the user to track the movement of these documents as well as any edits or changes to these documents. Content Circles also remembers that the documents originated in the Alfresco repository and allows the user to synchronize the changes back to Alfresco with a single click in Content Circles. The Content Circles Connector for Alfresco is expected to ship in June 2009. http://www.contentcircles.com

FatWire Software announced the launch of FatWire TeamUp 3.1 and the FatWire Content Integration Platform 1.5.  These new releases are intended to streamline the collaboration and content creation process for the web, and save time and cost in sharing and reusing content. FatWire TeamUp 3.1 is a collaboration platform that enables disparate teams to work together and share content with social computing features such as wikis, blogs, comments, and social tagging. This new release gives marketers a tool set for creating web content, encouraging creativity across multiple projects, driving efficiencies in personal productivity, and facilitating team communication. FatWire Content Integration Platform 1.5 puts enterprise content stored in disparate repositories at the fingertips of web managers, so that they can easily access the content they need to make websites rich and compelling. The FatWire Content Integration Platform delivers flexibility for custom integrations plus greater enterprise controls for content sharing. http://www.fatwire.com