Family Learning Center

Posts Tagged ‘Social Enterprise’

Google Apps Offers Migration for Microsoft Exchange

Google Apps is offering migration for Microsoft Exchange. The service is free with Google Apps Premiere or Google Apps Education.

Last July, Google Apps began offering migration from IBM’s Lotus Notes. Most enterprises are standardized on either Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes, which means that Google now pretty much can migrate any organization to the cloud. Google also offers connection to Blackberry Enterprise Server.Google Apps is providing migration for Microsoft Exchange 2003 and 2007.

Sponsor

Microsoft has very limited capability to offer a cloud-based email environment. Most of the offerings it provides are locally installed, single-hosting services. Concerns will wane about cloud security. The ability to offer a cloud-based email environment for easy access will be the norm, not the exception. But even though Google has a jump, Microsoft will have its own offering. In the meantime, Google has an opportunity to make another leap into the enterprise.

This does represent a tipping point for many companies shedding IT assets. The question about email often comes up when companies consider moving to the cloud. It’s an important part of the migration. In recent weeks, we have seen how email is becoming a foundation for the evolution of a web oriented, social enterprise. Google Apps Marketplace offers the capability to offer third party applications that integrate with Google Apps. Email is a critical part of the equation in this Google ecosystem. It provides a backbone for companies to connect its employees with Google Apps and the associated third-parties.

The process to migrate looks relatively simple. Through Google Apps, a customer enters their Microsoft Exchange user name and what it calls “two-legged OAuth,” consisting of a consumer user key and a consumer “secret”. They then upload a .CSV file consisting of the email adresses, calendar and contact information. It is optional what to migrate. For example, an IT administrator may upload email addresses and contact data but not the calendar. Email service does not get interrupted during the migration.

This is a compelling offering for companies moving to the cloud. But it’s only part of the equation. Google still needs to prove it is robust enough for the enterprise to migrate to Google Apps. In the meantime, Microsoft needs to act fast and provide a cloud offering that at least gives its own community the option to move Microsoft Exchange to the cloud.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

The Cloud, Activity Streams and Applications That Cut Across the Home and the Office

Recently, SAP showed us its new, cloud-based enterprise collaboration service called 12Sprints. It embraces consumer services and activity streams correlating to the context of the business use, in particular collaboration among teams and groups.

Since that demo a few weeks ago, our views about the SAP service have changed a bit. In particular now that Google Buzz is part of the picture and conversations we have had recently with companies like Jive Software.

It’s evident that the landscape is changing. 12Sprints, Jive Software and a host of other enterprise services have solidified the belief that the enterprise expects applications to be social. Enterprise vendors are hearing that pretty clearly from their customers.

Sponsor

We stopped by the Jive Software office in Portland this week to talk with CEO Dave Hersh and Co-Founder and CTO Matt Tucker about the company and the technology direction in the market.

Hersh said Buzz is interesting as it reinforces to customers that activity streams are effective ways to get the right information to the right people. Now, enterprise customers want all of their applications to be social.

“Every application they have in house is getting buzzy,” Hersh said.

Bets are on for how to apply activity streams to the enterprise while at the same time developing open architectures so they may continually adapt to market changes.

For instance, Jive sees its “Social Business Software,” platform as reaching across the enterprise. It has invested heavily in the social, customer facing environments. The company recently acquired FiltrBox to track and analyze information from the social stream. The next step is to create activity streams for all applications, deeper in the enterprise. Integrate, for instance, an activity stream into an ERP or CRM environment.

Hersh said Jive now has 200 employees. He expects employee head count to be 300 by the end of the year. Resources will go to R&SD with a concentration in developing activity stream technology and mobile services.

In the meantime, the focus across the market is how to bring universality to consumer and enterprise applications. These are services built upon cloud-based infrastructures that use APIs to integrate consumer-based applications that are as popular for the office as the home.

SAP’s 12Sprints is illustrative of this trend. In December, we wrote about the service, describing it as a competitor to Google Wave. Now it seems more like Google Buzz. It has the elements of a fully collaborative environment where people add to a stream of information, editing simultaneously in real time.

It’s a competitor to any number of enterprise collaboration services, including Saleforce Chatter, PBWorks, MindTouch and IBM’s Project Vulcan. Other services that come to mind include Tibco’s Tibbr, as Dion Hinchliffe points out in his post recently about the 12Sprints service.

The service is designed to integrate with consumer-based API’s, initially integrating with Evernote and Scribd. That’s a smart approach. Innovation in the market is coming from services that are fit for the consumer or the professional. For example, doctors use Evernote to keep notes and for their own personal use.

The SAP team looks like they have no hesitation in developing 12Sprints as a service that is much like a consumer offering.

It uses activity streams that allow people to follow individuals, groups, updates or search terms.

But it is not a rival, as of yet, to Microsoft Sharepoint. 12Sprints takes a more focused approach than Sharepoint. Hinchcliffe points out that this may be its best attribute. It’s not like the rest of the pack in that it tries to do everything:

“It’s important to note that 12Sprints doesn’t try to be the best at everything, a fault that’s endemic to large enterprise application suites and which is wisely avoided here. It does however integrate with best-of-breed services where it makes sense, whether they’re from SAP or not. This includes WebEx, Evernote, and Scribd, with the first two custom-integrated and the latter as part of their extensions program. With extensions any developer can onboard their functionality to 12Sprints, which offers users an experience not dissimilar to an app store and makes it possible for anyone to enhance the platform.

Who will find 12Sprints compelling? Those who have traditional, non-collaborative desktop and communication tools. E-mail and instant messaging is an obvious competitor for many of the tasks that 12Sprints targets, while Microsoft Project, Web conferencing, and knowledge/document management tools are as well in terms of more directed and less open-ended apps.”

SAP, Jive and even Google have a shared interest in developing applications built upon open architectures. The consumer facing aspects of these applications will continue to unfold, especially as cloud computing grows in acceptance.

And with this all, activity streams will be the standard for how the social stream flows.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Enterprise 2.0: Study Shows Adoption is Real

When you look at Enterprise 2.0, you can see the hype pretty clearly but what is not so evident is how social computing efforts are faring within corporations and large organizations.

That’s what’s striking about the report from the 2.0 Adoption Council. The group did a web survey of its 100 members with 77 responding. That may seem like a small number to use for any quantifiable conclusion about the state of Enterprise 2.0. But the people who responded lead or help lead Enterprise 2.0 efforts at some of the largest organizations in the world. Thirty-four percent of the respondents work for companies with more than 10,000 employees. Twenty-five percent work for organizations that have more than 100,000 employees.

Sponsor

These people have solid footing into how social enterprise technologies are being adopted.

Let’s get to to the results:

Manufacturing Has Surprising High Adoption

It’s not surprising to see high tech companies as leading the way in uses of Enterprise 2.0 technologies. But it’s interesting that manufacturing businesses are proving to be adopters. These are companies with roots deep in the industrial age that are showing that they see it as important to bring social computing into the work of its employees.

No Surprise About Early Adoption

It should be no surprise that Enterprise 2.0 is still in the early adopter phase.

Budgets Are Healthy

Budgets are less than $500,000 in most organizations but 52 percent of the respondents have budgets between $500,000 and $5 milliion.

Projects Are Well Under Way

Enterprise 2.0 is not just a concept any more but a reality in the enterprise with 34 percent saying they have multiple projects underway. We are curious about five percent having Enterprise 2.0 technologies fully ingrained into their work places. These must be more service oriented companies that do not rely on deeply entrenched technologies like ERP software.

Who’s Driving The Efforts

We often use terms like “groundswell,” to describe the phenomena around social applications in the consumer world. In the enterprise, it’s a different story. Adoption is often user driven but management is dictating a lot of the efforts.

ROI is Hard To Define

The one weakness that Enterprise 2.0 faces is the abstractness of its return on investment. It’s important to note, though, that 55 percent of the respondents are very satisfied with their Enterprise 2.0 efforts. Another 26 percent of respondents are somewhat satisfied.

Conclusion

The 2.0 Adoption Council survey results unquestionably show that Enterprise 2.0 is well becoming a core part of organizations. The challenges will come as more scrutiny is placed on how the organization benefits from Enterprise 2.0. What really is the ROI? We expect this question will answer itself as more advanced analytics provide more detailed views about how the efforts are faring.

A Final Note

In addition to its survey research, The Council has also released its first “how-to” report, “A Framework for 2.0 Adoption in the Enterprise,” which gives additional insight into how to successfully implement Enterprise 2.0 technologies within organizations.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Zoho Makes Another Move to be the IT of the Small Business Market

Zoho is making another move to serve as the IT department for the small business market. Its latest offering is a service for staffing agencies and human resources to automate the process for hiring people.

The new service, available now, is an applicant tracking system that helps staffing agencies and recruiting departments track job openings, resumes and candidates. The enterprise is stil heavily dependent on email and manual processes for any number of practices with human resources being no exception to the rule.

Sponsor

Zoho’s strategy is to create a level of automation that makes a human resources functions manageable, a model they have used for the services they offer for sales, marketing and other functions in the enterprise.

Zoho Recruit has a number of features including web forms; the ability to aggregate resumes from social sites and ways to track the status of a client within the application.

Activity streams are emerging as a standard for new social enterprise products. In Zoho Recruit, though, the activity streams look more like simple views into the status of a job opening, profiles of other people on the team and the interviews on schedule for the day.

Here’s an overview of Zoho Recruit:

It’s clear that Zoho s gunning for the enterprise market with a focus on the small business sector. The company is increasingly perceived as a competitive threat to larger, more established companies. This is illustrated by a Microsft executive’s remark earlier this month that Zoho is a “fake” Microsoft office.

Zoho responded with FakeOffice.org, featuring a video they made in September, renaming it “Fake Office – the Movie.”

Zoho is a challenger to Salesforce.com in the small business market, whic has moved up market in the past few years. That approach has worked for Salesforce but in these markets the company faces deep pressures from larger competitors such as Oracle.

Zoho faces its own competition but it has a unique approach. Its products are varied, giving customers the feeling that they are using a service that is customized for their particular needs.

Plus, we like their videos. They explain their products. How about that?

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Tim Berners-Lee in Africa: Web Foundation Announces 2 New Projects

Sir Tim Berners-Lee, the creator of the Web, has embarked on a trip through Africa on behalf of the non-profit Web Foundation – which today announced two new projects.

The Web Foundation exists to bridge the ‘digital divide’ in Internet usage. Only about 25% of the world population uses the Web today, however more than 70% of people have access to mobile or fixed communication devices capable of displaying Web content. According to the W3C, "the gap in Web usage is partly attributable to the lack of accessible or relatable content, and the lack of available training on how to use the Web to its full potential."

Sponsor

On his African trip, Berners-Lee will visit Kenya, Nairobi and Uganda. There he will meet with government leaders, development workers and educators to help support local Web initiatives – such as improving local health and education.

The Web Foundation was founded in 2008 by Tim Berners-Lee, with the aim of studying the Web and expanding access to the billions of people worldwide who aren’t currently online. Today, the Web Foundation launched a fundraising campaign and announced two partnerships.

On the former, Web Foundation CEO Steve Bratt hopes to raise $10-20 million per year, much of which will be put towards programs that train people to use the Web.

One of the partnerships is with the University Amsterdam in the Netherlands, which aims to expedite “re-greening” initiatives throughout the African continent. The other partnership is with the CDI (Center for Digital Inclusion), a social enterprise based in Brazil dedicated to educating disadvantaged youth about information technologies. The Web Foundation and CDI plan to develop training programs to teach young people how to create accessible Web content.

It’s interesting to note that many of the Web Foundation initiatives have a big Mobile Web component. In the CDI partnership, Web-based applications are being created that will be "mobile ready." Accessibility is also a key aspect of these projects. The CDI web apps will integrate voice and graphical elements.

In a previous trip to Africa in September, Tim Berners-Lee visited Ghana to meet with officials and educators. He’s currently at the 2009 Internet Governance Forum in Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt – where he made today’s announcements. Starting next week, Berners-Lee will travel to Kenya, Nairobi and Uganda.

Below is a video of Berners-Lee in Ghana, courtesy of BBC’s Digital Revolution program, talking with a Ghanaian about why he values the Web. You can see more of these videos here.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

Jive Raises $12 Million For Social Enterprise Software

Jive, the maker of a all-in-one social enterprise software, has raised $12 million in Series B funding from Sequoia Capital. Jive previously raised $15 million in Series A funding from Sequoia in August of 2007.

Modeled to offer Facebook-like features to enterprises, Jive combines computing with social collaboration. Its suite of applications help businesses collaborate on a variety of tasks, including holding discussions, sharing documents, blogging, running polls, and social networking features and more. Jive says it will will use the funding for product development, to “expand its partner ecosystem,” and grow its sales and customer support teams. The company, which is profitable, recently launched integration with Microsoft SharePoint, letting Jive users easily access data and content from the CMS into Jive’s software.

Last year, the startup released new versions of its Clearspace software in April and acquired Jotlet. This year, the software company integrated Jive’s software into a complete package and also recently incoroprated social media monitoring into its platform. Jive’s competitors include NewsGator and Socialtext.

Crunch Network: MobileCrunch Mobile Gadgets and Applications, Delivered Daily.

Read the whole story…

Study: Enterprise Lags in Social Web Savviness

A Deloitte study that came out this morning shows a much deeper interest in the social web but still a lot of potential left to tap.

This is the second year Deloitte LLC has evaluated the perceived potential of online communities and how enterprises believe it can be better leveraged. The study, interestingly titled “Tribalization of Business,” measures the responses of more than 400 companies, including Fortune 100 organizations that have created and now maintain online communities.

Sponsor

If you have been involved in the development of the social Web, these results will not be a huge surprise. People these days know more about the tools available but are a bit stymied on how to maximize them. The results show that online tools are used to engage with customers, partners and employees on brand discussions and idea generation. Still, they continue to struggle with harnessing social media’s full potential.

Here are some of the results of the study:

The Market is Maturing

The study shows that the number of people participating in social media efforts is always the top measure of success. But this year, the results show a deeper interest in non-active users, or “lurkers”: people who observe the community but don’t participate in the discussion.

• 32% of respondents are capturing data on how lurkers derive value from the community.
• 20% of respondents have set up formal “ambassador” programs, which give outsiders preferential treatment in return for being more active in the community.
• 39% of respondents indicated that more full-time people are being deployed to manage their communities.

What’s the True Measure of Success?

The obstacles to success are issues that bloggers can certainly relate to in their efforts to encourage people to become lasting members of an online community. The study reports the challenges in getting people to:

• Join: 24% of respondents identified this as an obstacle.
• Stay engaged: 30% of respondents cited this as a challenge.
• Return: 21% said they have difficulty getting people to return to the online community.

More Engagement Is a Community Effort

Adoption is one thing, but full-on immersion of the enterprise community in the social Web is a whole other matter. As practitioners, we know that the key to any such effort is to avoid making it one group or department’s job to develop the online community. The cultural shift requires practice, the freedom to experiment and the cultivation of a core community across the enterprise whose members serve as the main influencers.

It’s interesting to note the rise of the community manager and how it correlates to the Deloitte study. Companies do view the role of the community manager as increasingly important. Yet the effort to make it all work has to be network-wide. And the only way to do that is to get more people involved into the process, so that idea flow and the returns start showing up in real, tangible ways.

It’s a different way of thinking. For example, social media campaigns are often framed in traditional marketing practices. But really, the possibilities of social technology are infinite. Traditional media campaigns have a beginning and end. Social technology fuels conversation. One, five, ten or ten thousand people could all be stirring up and participating in conversations using social media tools. The conversation has a time dimension that just runs on and on. As we noted yesterday, this is why social tools adopt a river-of-news style. With such an activity stream, the conversation is endless.

The issue has to do with participating in the discussion, which looks like the main concern of respondents. The majority agreed that the following points continue to be the top business objectives of online communities:

• Increase word of mouth (38%),
• Increase customer loyalty (34%),
• Increase brand awareness (30%),
• Improve idea generation (29%),
• Improve the quality of customer support (23%).

Next Steps

Deloitte seems to be right on with the next steps to take.

• Think tribe, not market segment
• Think network, not channel
• Think customer-centric, not company-centric.

Overall, the results of the Deloitte study are quite encouraging. The enterprise is shifting in its thinking and will gradually change in all facets of how it operates. Management structures will change. Decisions about technology purchases will be affected. And hopefully, the enterprise will be a better place for everyone in the eco-system.

Discuss

Read the whole story…

What a Contrast – Jive Software Connects with Sharepoint

When the dust settles after the Sharepoint 2010 launch, a number of questions will be answered. In particular, does Sharepoint match the best of breed social enterprise applications that keep entering the market?

Sponsor

Probably not. More so, the future more likely will be a mix of Sharepoint technology fitted with applications from companies like Jive Software, the social business software provider which today announced a social layer for Sharepoint.

Sharepoint is a beast to some and a darling to others. Like any entrenched technology you have to live with it, no matter how contrasting your technology may be.

Jive Software seems to be in that place, right in the middle. Their technology has received high acclaim. But they are a small company. At this point, their best option is to integrate with Sharepoint so users may get the benefits of its social capabilities.

Jive will offer companies a social layer that rides across Sharepoint’s content silos. These include the Jive Sharepoint Connector, which allows users to connect between Jive Social Business Software and Microsoft Sharepoint. Users may connect content and activities that originate in either Jive or Sharepoint through a single stream.

<img alt=”Shared-Docs-small.jpg” src=”http://www.family-learning-center.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/0efcf_Shared-Docs-small-thumb-750×454-9564.jpg” width=”750″ height=”454″

Jive is banking on the power of the social graph. The premise being that people have become accustomed to using technologies that leverage a social graph, use multi-threaded discussions, blogging and user-defined tagging. These are applications that have a time dimension, a river of news, or what is now being called an activity stream.

What’s in contrast are the architectural differences between Jive and Sharepoint, a document-based software where content is stored in data silos. In a not so subtle way, Jive’s press release states that:

“CMS solutions were not architected for rich dialog around content….Conversations and activities often occur “off the grid” in email vacuums.”

The press release goes on to say that most organizations have several generations of legacy documents with valuable content being lost or invisible.

Jive maintains that its software will serve as a unifier, allowing companies to “socialize,” content and unlock what is trapped in these data silos. Search can only dive so deep into the silos. It is the relationships and interests that will foster the connections with content authors and their networks.

Those are pretty lofty goals. Activity streams, especially when aggregated, do illuminate conversations but what about the legacy documents? Will this unifying layer surface information, creating an ecosystem of experts and related information?

What we do like is the idealism and pragmatism baked into Jive’s plan.

On the pragmatic side, there is the standard integration with unified searches reflecting both application environments. Jive’s plan is designed to comply with corporate data and security policies. It includes “semantically rich” IT business rules to define how and when content is distributed.

On the idealist side, we can see the pure, unadulterated, passionate view about the effects that social technologies can have on the enterprise.

We will see how this mix works. There is no doubt that Sharepoint and Jive are in the same space. It’s just their contrasts that are so striking:

“….administrators strictly define what, how and when content gets socialized out of Sharepoint hierarchies.”

Socialaized out of Sharepoint hierarchies?

That sounds like what you get when you mix corporate IT and the social web.

Discuss

Read the whole story…