Yammer, the Twitter for businesses, is adding some impressive features: Revamped iPhone App with Push notifications, Likes - message sharing tool, Threads - threaded message view and Improved Search. Other improvements include more security options (you can make passwords automatically expire after a certain time period), a ‘broadcast’ mode for network admins that lets them send a message throughout an entire network, and an improved interface. All in all this is a great update for Yammer, which continues to improve on an already-solid product. ***
Since Google decided that Apps
was something they wanted to sell to enterprises, lack of integration
with BlackBerry Enterprise server has been an impediment to making that
sale. Now that's changed. Starting today Google Apps customers can sync their mail, contacts and calendar with BlackBerry smartfones. The new Connector
they launched today will give you some fairly high-quality results.
Emails sent to Gmail aren't true push, but they'll show up within 60
seconds. You can also read and delete emails and Calendar items with
full unity with the online backup; Gmail labels will even translate
into BlackBerry folders. ***
Today, Gmail has added the ability to email tasks from Google Tasks service. “Email Task List” is now being rolled out as an option under the ‘Actions” tab under Tasks. When you click on “Email Task List” it will open compose email window with the contents of your current task list. You can send your current task lasts or completed task lists to anyone.Though minor in comparison to other features added to Gmail, the ability to email your Task list can be particularly useful to share both work-related and personal to-do list. ***
Just nine days after SpringSource (Java application infrastructure developer) was acquired by VMWare, the company announces the acquisition of Cloud Foundry, a Java platform-as-a-service provider.SpringSource will now launch the Enterprise Java Cloud, which it claims will “enable developers to deploy and manage Spring, Grails, and Java applications within a public cloud environment.” Over the coming months SpringSource will build upon the product with enhanced cloud management features and other custom services. The merged product, dubbed SpringSource Cloud Foundry, is immediately available at CloudFoundry.com in free public beta. Normal cloud service provider fees still apply, and further pricing information is set to be announced after an extended beta period. SpringSource claims that the service will be made available to users of Amazon Web Services and VMWare’s vCloud partners. ***
Today Google added two new tools for Google Enterprise Search: Side-by-Side
search comparison and new connectors for the GSA. Side-by-Side search lets users test and rate results from two
different search queries (Policy A vs. Policy B) on the same data, to
see which gives better results. Employees can vote on their preferred
results, by clicking on either the Policy A or Policy B button and the
administrator can then use that information to choose and set up the
right search solution for the business. The GSA connector lets businesses connect to
different types of data, both online and offline, for search
functionality. It has been updated to search across
content management systems of enterprises (such as SharePoint, FileNet,
etc). Google also now provides a connector specifically for Salesforce
data, so the GSA can include internal Salesforce data in search
results. ***
Google has linked its Google Apps suite with the Groups
service, making it possible to share documents, sites, and calendars
among defined groups of people. For example, a spreadsheet shared with a
Google Group will be accessible immediately to anyone joining that
group, or rendered inaccessible to those leaving the group. Across Google's various applications, including Docs, Sites,
Video for Business, and Calendar, groups can be given access by having
an invitation sent to the group's e-mail address, rather than to an
individual's e-mail address. Until now to share these items, you had either to make them entirely public, or share them on a person-by-person basis. ***
Today
GMail has made one more step towards enterprise market by supporting
email retention and delegation for
Apps customers. The new features enable to set company-wide
retention policies in order to comply with regulatory requirements and
allow users to let others manage email for them. Email retention policy
is an important aspect of regulatory
compliance in the enterprise. Depending on your sector, there may be
both industry and government rules to follow when it comes to what
email is retained, how it's stored, and for how long. The Premier
Edition of Apps will allow your administrators to set policies,
starting today. Email delegation is aimed at executives
and administrators, rather than something attractive to
everyone in an enterprise. But allowing that kind of business-specific
functionality in Apps is definitely an important. ***
Parallels, the virtualisation solutions provider, has launched a public beta of Parallels Panel 10 SMB Edition. It is designed to offer hosted control panel software to hosting and cloud services providers, that allows them to provide a range of services to SME customers. The new application includes a new marketplace. The new solution includes the Parallels Partner Marketplace, which allows hosts to offer a software-as-a-service (SaaS) delivery platform for access to a number of IT and business applications, such as e-commerce, customer relationship management, human resources, accounting, video conferencing, web content management and email. The marketplace works as a co-branded partnering with Parallels in a revenue-share model. As a result, hosters can instantly provide a full catalogue of SaaS applications to their customers while Parallels takes care of the set-up, provisioning, billing and management of the applications. ***
Socialcast,
the enterprise collaboration and microblogging platform, has announced the
release of its official developer API.
With this API developers can extend the product
with new functionality. Essentially, Socialcast lets employees in companies communicate via
activity streams, create groups, and share links, file, and knowledge
across the enterprise. The API allows developers to build native clients or internal
applications, accessing the Socialcast activity stream. Besides, now companies can expose their
Socialcast activity streams to each other for cross-enterprise
collaboration. To get access
to the Socialcast API, you’ll have to already have an account, and from
there, you’ll find all the information. ***
Microsoft and Nokia announced a partnership that would take
MS Office applications (Word, Excel,
PowerPoint, OneNote, Sharepoint and Office
Communicator) onto Nokia smartphones. Despite rumors to the contrary this week, Nokia confirmed that they're
sticking with Symbian while they bring the software to their ESeries
devices. The first service to appear next year will be Microsoft's
Communicator, with full Office support later in the release cycle. Next
up will be SharePoint and System Center, an IT infrastructure product. It's clear that this move is an
admission, even if it's implicit, that Windows Mobile hasn't shown the
success in mobile productivity that Microsoft has hoped for. ***