Collaboration: June 2010 Archives

SDL announced the acquisition of Xopus, a provider of online XML editing. The acquisition by SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division addresses the growing trend to broaden the adoption of structured authoring beyond technical writers. Founded in 2001 in the Netherlands, Xopus has emerged as a friendly and simple-to-use online XML editor. Complementing high-end XML editors that are designed specifically for technical writers, Xopus enables a broader audience to contribute comments and content to increasingly distributed structured authoring processes. Accessed through a Web browser, Xopus provides the flexibility, ease-of-use, and interactivity of a Wiki, while still leveraging the benefits of structured content. The Xopus organization will become part of SDL’s Structured Content Technologies division. A prototype integration already exists between SDL Xopus and SDL Trisoft, the company’s Component Content Management system for DITA. Looking forward, SDL Xopus will be integrated with SDL LiveContent , the company’s publishing solution. Future integrations are envisioned with SDL Contenta  for S1000D and related markets, as well as SDL’s suite of Global Information Management technologies. SDL will continue its philosophy of supporting an “open technology” approach to the enterprise ecosystem through integration to 3rd party applications and systems. SDL Xopus will continue to support existing integrations to 3rd party content management systems. http://www.sdl.com/ 

Nuxeo, the Open Source Enterprise Content Management (ECM) company, announced Nuxeo Case Management Framework (Nuxeo CMF) package for application builders, ISVs and information architects that need to deliver content-centric applications to business users. The open source case management framework is delivered as a downloadable product complete with templates, samples and documentation to ease deployments of content applications based on the Nuxeo Enterprise Platform (Nuxeo EP). Nuxeo Case Management Framework adds functionality to support the flow of related content items that need to be handled, managed and analyzed in a case-centric metaphor. Nuxeo CMF is unique for a case management framework from an ECM provider in that it has been released as open source. Nuxeo is deeply committed to both open source and open standards - ensuring full compliance with key initiatives such as CMIS (Content Management Interoperability Services), Dublin Core, PDF/A, OpenSocial and OSGi. The Nuxeo Case Management framework is a full-featured, extensible toolkit that natively includes document management, collaboration, workflow, reporting, dashboards and unified in-box management functionality. This allows application builders to focus on building templates, plug-ins and business logic to meet specific content management requirements determined by industry-specific use cases or externally-imposed regulatory mandates. Nuxeo Case Management Framework Feature Highlights include: Creation of cases with attachments, metadata, and a managed workflow path; Edit and update case and case item metadata, status, attachments, relationships; Centralized routing service to distribute and route cases manually or based on business rules, including pre-defined and customizable distribution lists, "cc:" notifications; Creation of unified mailboxes to capture incoming communication and content types from diverse sources; Classification and categorization of cases and case items; Configuration of complex business logic with Nuxeo EP's content automation; Filing and browsing of cases with file plans, with a metadata axis (faceted browsing) and social tagging; Comprehensive search including fulltext; Reporting capabilities; Content life cycle management, notifications and email alerts; Content markup and annotations; Security based on dynamic access control and complex users, groups and permission services including delegation of decision-making; Customizable and centralized audit trail; Workflow for document, task and process management; Standardized interfaces for item intake from capture systems; Open Java and Web Services (REST) APIs; CMIS compliant by leveraging the power of the underlying Nuxeo Enterprise Platform; Modular, extensible ECM components and services for application development; and Integration across the IT ecosystem. http://www.nuxeo.com/

Brainshark, Inc., a provider of on-demand multimedia for business, announced Brainshark Mobile, enabling smartphone and iPad users to view Brainshark-delivered communications on their mobile devices. Now, Brainshark's enterprise customers, as well as users of the free myBrainshark.com site, can create content that can be viewed anywhere, anytime and on most devices. Brainshark presentations combine voice narration, PowerPoint slides, video and more for a multimedia experience. The presentations play as streamed video files when viewed on mobile devices. Through Brainshark's analytics capabilities, users can see when their presentations were viewed, who viewed them, if content was viewed on a mobile device and what type of device was used. Platforms and devices supported by Brainshark Mobile include the BlackBerry, Palm Pre, iPhone, iPod touch, iPad and Android; all must support streaming video. For Brainshark's enterprise users, Brainshark Mobile is included at no additional cost as part of Brainshark's core platform. Presentations created are automatically mobile-enabled. http://presentation.brainshark.com/

Google has announced a set of new features and editors available to Google Docs users. Google Docs will now have new editors for documents and spreadsheets, designed to be faster and support more features. Documents will now feature character-by-character real-time collaboration, a ruler for custom margins and tab stops, as well as improvements to the import function. The new version of spreadsheets has been enhanced for speed, includes a formula editing bar, cell auto-complete and more. Google Docs accounts through universities, employers or organizations will start seeing the new editors by default in the coming weeks. You can now set a document, spreadsheet, presentation or drawing to be “Private,” available to “Anyone with the link,” or “Public on the web,” and then customize who has access by inviting specific collaborators. If you’re using Google Docs at work or at school, you’ll also see options to share your files just with other people within your organization. New features for the drawings editor in Google Docs were implented as well. Now you can center objects on the page, resize the entire canvas, view thumbnails of your drawings in your doc list, search across your drawings by text contained within and view a list of editing keyboard shortcuts. We also added the ability for you to share drawings in the Google Docs template gallery, so other people around the world can use your creations. http://www.google.com/

Saba has announced the Saba Collaboration Suite, a real-time collaboration and enterprise business networking solution designed to enable social learning and collaborative performance management. Saba Collaboration Suite infuses real-time collaboration and enterprise business networking capabilities into learning and performance management people processes. Saba Collaboration Suite combines Saba Live, an enterprise business networking offering, and Saba Centra, an enterprise web conferencing solution. Saba Live will integrate Saba's person profile, and will include embedded competency-driven expertise, Twitter-like performance feedback, blended learning, and workplace analytics. Features include real-time communication capabilities such as instant messaging, video-enabled channels, VoIP-enabled online meetings, and web conferences. Saba Dynamic Network Analysis (DNA), is a workplace analytics platform for visualizing connections between people and resources to provide strategic organizational insight. www.saba.com

Cisco announced new and enhanced collaboration solutions designed to help workers to connect to the right people and access and share content remotely. Cisco announced that Cisco Quad, an enterprise collaboration platform will be available later this year via native iPad and iPhone applications. Cisco also unveiled a new Cisco Prosumer Video solution which integrates Cisco FocalPoint, an online video workspace with a business-class Cisco Flip MinoPRO camcorder. Finally, Cisco announced that Cisco WebEx Connect IM is now available across browsers. Together, these three collaboration solutions offer a secure, manageable collaborative environment with video, real time instant messaging (IM) and social networking capabilities. Cisco Quad highlights include: the ability to search across content within the organization, as well as locate people and expertise; Mobile Quad applications optimized for the Apple iPad and iPhone; Integratation with content management systems such as Microsoft SharePoint and Documentum, as well as with voice and video business communications solutions; and every Quad user will receive a Cisco Show and Share license granting video authoring, posting, publishing and editing capabilities. Quad will be available on a limited basis, beginning in Cisco's first quarter of fiscal year 2011, in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, and Australia/New Zealand. The Cisco Prosumer Video solution highlights include a new online video workspace, FocalPoint, and a new business-class four-hour Flip MinoPRO camcorder. FocalPoint delivers cloud-based management, sharing and editing capabilities and provides an easy way for organizational teams to interact with their video content. Cisco FlipShare software, preloaded on the camcorder, allows users to edit, store and manage video content locally on their workstation before sharing it with the organizational team via FocalPoint. The software client uses an encrypted upload protocol to enable confidential content delivery, while FocalPoint adopts SSL (Secure Socket Layer) for highly secure Web sessions and data protection. The Cisco Prosumer Video solution is part of the Cisco collaboration portfolio and will be available through Cisco channel partners beginning in August. The newest version of Cisco WebEx Connect IM lets users access their contact lists and send instant messages via a browser-based IM client, making the solution accessible from any computer without the need for a client download. The Windows client for Cisco WebEx Connect IM is now localized for French, German, Spanish, Italian and Japanese. Server-side IM logging allows organizations to capture logs of all IM traffic for efficient regulatory compliance. Customers who are already archiving email can use their existing infrastructure. Building on Cisco's acquisition of Jabber, customers looking to add presence and chat capabilities to their Web applications can do so with Cisco's AJAX XMPP library, for developing Web applications and portal integrations. These tools were used in building presence and chat capabilities into Cisco Quad. http://www.cisco.com/

Open Text Corporation has announced an expanded family of social media offerings aimed at enabling businesses to apply social media to solve business challenges.  Open Text aims to help drive productivity within the enterprise with social media solutions that let users create profiles, follow co-workers and generate news feeds, or collaborate on projects.  With the new and enhanced capabilities, attention was paid to ease of use for business users and application to real challenges, along with continued full support for Open Text’s core competence in information governance and control.  Offerings now include: Open Text Social Communities – Formerly Vignette Community Applications and Services, Open Text Social Communities is an enterprise social media solution for engaging with customers, employees, and partners. As part of a broader marketing and CRM strategy, social media can give companies greater market insight, improved market engagement and, more importantly, significant improvements in customer satisfaction and retention. Enhancements in the latest release support rapid creation of socially enabled websites along with social microsites that combine Web 2.0 functionality, with analytics and social search. Now part of Open Text ECM Suite, Open Text Social Communities consolidates social applications, such as video galleries, photo galleries, slideshows, comments, ratings, forums, blogs, wikis, download management, event management, and idea management with user profiles, microblogging, social bookmarking, and group and moderation support. http://www.opentext.com