Image via CrunchBase

There’s a ton of activity in real-time collaboration these days. With Office looming and IBM’s social push with LotusLive, companies have a lot more options when it comes to social computing and collaboration tools.

One of the companies with an increasingly attractive option is California-based Central Desktop. TechCrunch reported on some of its moves recently and I wanted to chip in with a few observations.

I’ve had some exposure to some of Central Desktop’s earlier incarnations and always liked its simplicity and pervasive use of RSS, essentially making everything a feed. And we all know [a little snarky] that feeds are the new inbox, right? But even early on, you got the sense that Isaac Garcia and company had a good handle on how syndicating everything could reap big benefits. It was one of the few platforms I used that brought RSS plumbing to the common user.

More importantly, Central Desktop brings real workflows and simple processes into its collaborative environment. When that’s exposed to users early on, most can quickly grasp how the tool can accommodate the way they work, not the other way around. That’s big.

As far as the industry goes, prospects for some of the stronger pure-plays look good, with several probably ripe for acquisition over the next 6-12 months.

Competitively, the collaboration road is much tougher for the smaller vendors to travel down these days, with larger enterprise vendors lurking at every bend.

But Central Desktop, Box.net and others can still carve out a niche in what’s increasingly a hybrid enterprise environment. IBM’s Cast Iron acquisition a few days back is evidence that on-premise and cloud solutions will continue to coexist for some time. It’s that heterogeneous environment that makes solutions from pure-play cloud vendors so compelling. Clearly, there’s more to just dropping in a SaaS-based solution, but they typically require less overhead than on-premise offerings.

And heck, if Central Desktop can capture even a small percentage of SharePoint-wannabe customers with tight pocketbooks, they’ll have more than a few good quarters ahead of them.

Central Desktop’s tool allows users to simultaneously co-author Word, Excel and PowerPoint documents in real time, as well as open and save files directly into the cloud.

Central Desktop says that their tool brings document collaboration to older versions of Office at a much lower cost than upgrading to the new version of Office.

Related articles

Image by Ribbit Voice via Flickr

• Top 5 Web Trends of 2009: Structured Data [ReadWriteWeb]
  (tags: structured+data web+services data APIs readwriteweb)

  

• Telligent Analysis on GigaOM Pro
  (tags: telligent collaboration social+software)

Image by George Dearing via Flickr

• Top 10 Enterprise Products of 2009 [ReadWriteEnterprise]
  Not sure why Salesforce Chatter is on the list…
  (tags: enterprise2.0 collaboration microsoft socialnetworking enterprise sharepoint mindtouch readwriteweb)

• Rupert Murdoch: Journalism and Freedom – WSJ.com
  "Quality content is not free. In the future, good journalism will depend on the ability of a news organization to attract customers by providing news and information they are willing to pay for."
  (tags: business media WSJ newspaper publishing journalism newspapers murdoch news)
• Why Open Source Phones Still Fail [PC Magazine]
  (tags: mobile opensource iphone apple android nokia linux google)

Image via Wikipedia

• AmEx Opens Up Data Treasure Trove
  " a new unit that will harness transaction data for its 90 million cardholders to inform both marketing decisions and larger strategic issues"
  (tags: data amex mashups marketing business+strategy financial+services)

• Transforming Software Architecture for the 21st Century
  (tags: web SOA software dion+hincliffe enterprise2.0 enterprise+2.0)

Image via CrunchBase

Nice work by ComBlu’s Steve Hershberger and my Telligent colleague Lawrence Liu.

Ten Best Practices For Growing A Successful Online Community

Posted via web from George Dearing dot com

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

• Augmented Reality: Not That Real Yet – BusinessWeek
  (tags: software web technology mobile iphone businessweek augmented_reality augmentedreality)
• Does working from home make you more productive? Yes (with data)! « RescueTime Blog
  "we felt like we weren’t working as hard, but were actually logging about 22% more development and design hours."
  (tags: productivity office statistics stats work telecommuting)

• 33 things you don’t need if you have an iPhone
  (tags: iphone GTD)

  

• Google ChromeOS: It’s basically a modified browser that runs web apps
  "It’s an operating system based on a web browser called… Google Chrome. The idea is that you won’t have to (or be able to) install a single application directly on your PC. Rather, all of your apps will be run from the web and all of your data will be stored in the cloud. "
  (tags: google chrome chrome+OS)
• Microsoft, Salesforce.com Offer Social Tools [WSJ.com]
  "The moves are the latest sign of how consumer-oriented technologies—from instant messaging to Apple Inc.’s iPhone—are invading the workplace and forcing companies to adapt to advances that boost productivity."
  (tags: social+networking social+technologies microsoft salesforce web2.0)

 The reports from CMS Watch are consistently thorough, but usually geared for more technical tire-kickers. Some of the highlights in the press release echo some of what I’m seeing in the marketplace. (Full disclosure: I work at Telligent)

I agree with part of this one:

"Vendors’ growing emphasis on specific solutions in lieu of feature creep."

Yes, solutions are clearly a trend, but a big differentiator here is the partner ecosystem. If you ask most vendors for specific solutions, most of the time you’ll get partial pieces of the solution. It’s very difficult for most pure-plays to have the horsepower to deliver end-to-end. Make sure you understand your vendor’s alliance model.

There’s loads of inevitability around this one.

"Near total absence of the kind of significant M&A activity that has created significant upheaval for some customers in the ECM and Portals marketplaces, among others"

I think the interesting part is noticing which vendors have a heavy reliance on the biggest enterprise software vendors. That should tell you who’s gonna buy who. I’d also expect a potential merger of pure-play peers. For a few, that may be the only way to survive.

The last one alludes to some of the open source activity.

Maturation of key private vendors and open source projects, whose increasingly influential customer bases play a stabilizing role with respect to backwards’ compatibility and future directions

Between Dion Hinchcliffe’s recent marketplace chart and this one (CMS Watch), Drupal seems to have entrenched itself in the social software sector. While I won’t discount Drupal’s presence, I will say the C-Suite conversations I’ve had are devoid of any Drupal references. But I’m a business guy, not someone running a dev shop or IT organization.

And yes, I’ve used the platform to perform what Drupal evangelists call "Social Publishing." I think part of Drupal’s newsworthiness is a couple of things. It’s quickly captured mind share as it’s moved from one space (CMS) to another. That tells me that not only are things still early, there’s also a lot of confusion. The other thing I think it shows is open source can (and no doubt will) coexist in enterprise environments with more traditional platforms. If you think one tool set vendor can single-handedly move you to social, you need to reset your expectations.

And Byrne ends with a bit of captain obvious, but duly notes the importance of the right implementation strategy.

"In the meantime, buyers should assess each vendor individually. "You can’t just select any one vendor and succeed automatically," concludes Byrne. "But the collective risk profile among the leading two-dozen players is definitely lower than a year ago, which means enterprises can spend more effort focused on implementation success."

• The Year The Newspaper Died
  "..23 of the top 25 newspapers reported circulation declines between 7% and 20%."
  (tags: business media trends newspapers 2009)

  

• Internet Companies and Ad Agencies Find Some Common Ground [NYTimes]
  Analysts say the rivalry between Microsoft and Google may also play into their overtures to the ad industry. While Google has dominated the search business, Microsoft introduced a new search engine, Bing, in late May. It has lifted Microsoft’s share of online searches in the United States to about 12 percent, according to comScore, a research firm, from 8% for Microsoft’s previous engine.
  (tags: microsoft google advertising search digital+strategy)

  

• Enterprise 2.0 conference follow-up [Being Peter Kim]
  Good preso on some internal enterprise 2.0 case studies.
  (tags: enterprise2.0 business collaboration community peter+kim e20 socialmedia)

Image via CrunchBase

• TI’s Web 2.0 Success Story: Better Customer Service – CIO.com
  "TI built the platform on technology from Telligent, a company that makes Web 2.0 technologies for the enterprise (often called Enterprise 2.0 apps). The Telligent platform allows customers to interact with the company hosting the forum, and each other, to solve problems."
  (tags: telligent Texas+Instruments online+communities web2.0 online+forums enterprise2.0)

Image via CrunchBase

• Use Microsoft Outlook with Google Apps for email, contacts, and calendar
  Google V. Microsoft continues.
  (tags: SaaS cloud+computing microsoft google google+apps)

• Paid Subscriptions to Digital Editions Rise – MarketingVOX
  "number of paid subscriptions to digital editions of magazines has leapt since 2007"
  (tags: paid+content digital+strategy online+content magazines content+distribution content)

• Collaborative Networks vs Social Networks
  "the English Daily Telegraph..recently integrated its web and print operations while laying out the newsroom around a central “hub.”
  (tags: enterprise2.0 collaboration socialsoftware e2.0 zdnet)

• How the $0 Netbook Might Just Help Save the Media Industry – AdAge
  "..imagine another netbook maker marketing a higher-priced monthly subscription fee for a tiered level of media access — with, say, Hulu Premium, or a Kindle-like book-subscription service or Times Reader 3.0 from The New York Times."
  (tags: netbooks media paid+content smartbooks advertising)

  

• BuzzStream: CRM for Social Media
  Web tools mashing up CRM and monitoring are increasing.
  (tags: tools measurement buzz software buzzstream social+crm)

Image by Getty Images via Daylife

• How Social Media is Radically Changing the Newsroom
  Analysis on new media’s effect on journalism.
  (tags: media blog pr news journalism newmedia twitter socialmedia newsroom press)

• True/Slant Tests Web Journalism Model – WSJ.com

  I like the model..good aggregation with a follower/following model in place for authors..the trend of letting journalists continue to write at their anchor destinations is something you’ll see more of.
  (tags: media advertising blogging publishing journalism true/slant community journalism content WSJ)

• Modernizing Legacy Apps Is Top Software Priority ~ Forrester Survey
  "Software budgets will hold relatively steady. Enterprises allocated 16 percent of their IT operating budgets toward expensed software costs in 2008 and plan to allocate 17 percent over the next year."
  (tags: enterprise+software software forrester legacy+apps system+integration)

  

• Notes from Dow Jones Panel on "How Social Media is Changing the Enterprise" // #djconvo
  Some good tidbits on the changing sales process and newer publicity efforts related to PR.
  (tags: new+media social+media dow+jones socialmedia)

Image via Wikipedia

• You Can’t Build a Business Case for Social Software
  You build a business case by having clear-cut goals and defining the right set of metrics to measure against. Mistakes are made when gearing business processes around toolsets.
  (tags: enterprise2.0 collaboration socialsoftware roi strategy gartner metrics casestudies)

  

• ‘IT is the central nervous system of the company’ – Intel CIO | John Johnson
  Johnson mentions Intel’s social networking efforts and how it looks to younger workers for input as experimentation begins.
  (tags: Intel social+networking business+strategy john+johnson CIO c-suite)
• Questions To Ask When Evaluating Online Media
  Good to see online metrics leading the pack.
  (tags: online+media media+strategy media+buying advertising marketing content+strategies)
• How Facebook Will Upend Advertising – BusinessWeek
  Jonathan Yarmis argues advertising needs a 2.0 facelift more than any industry.
  (tags: advertising+2.0 facebook advertising social+networking social+computing)
• Social Networking Media ROI Calculator
  Pulled from the TweetStream of course thanks to Chis Geier and Telligent colleague Lawrence Liu.
  (tags: tools marketing socialmedia roi measurement metrics)
• The New Socialism: Global Collectivist Society Is Coming Online
  Pretty good read on the digital shifts taking place in society.
  (tags: social+networking wired socialmedia digital+socialism collaboration)

  

• Bringing Order to the Chaos of Notes – NYTimes.com
  Evernote is ahead of most I think. OneNote offers too much IMHO.
  (tags: evernote digital NYT GTD)

Image via CrunchBase

• Ten Ways Twitter has Completely Changed the Sales Process
  This is more a commentary on what a real-time view of the customer looks like.
  (tags: social+crm sales+2.0 microblogging)
• Surviving and thriving: or why MISO has it (mostly) wrong
  "If MISO is cornered into these long release cycles then where do the rapid fire releases come from? SaaS, where new ’stuff’ is, in some cases coming weekly but mostly each quarter?" – Dennis Howlett
  (tags: MISO enterprise+software ZDNet enterprise+2.0)

Image by George Dearing via Flickr

• eMarketer: Web’s Cut of Ad Dollars to Pass 15% by 2013
  "..rate of growth should accelerate because of the ongoing recession, which is causing many brands to reevaluate all of their ad and marketing budgets.."

• Enterprise 2.0 promise is years off…if it materializes

  "My overall sense is that the E2.0 problem is not about cost or ROI but about disruption" – Dennis Howlett, ZDNet blogger

• Web 2.0 Tools Gain Enterprise Acceptance
  $1bln spent on enterprise social software by 2012.

I’m really liking ZDNet’s video portfolio, especially coming out of last week’s  Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco. This segment’s from Stephen Elop, president of Microsoft’s business division, explaining how Microsoft helps companies use Web 2.0 inside the firewall.

Image by Esthr via Flickr

• BriefingsDirect Analysts list top 5 ways to cut enterprise IT costs …

Analyst guests make 5 recommendations for cutting enterprise IT costs amid the economic downturn.

Related articles

Image via Wikipedia

• Nutella: Web Giant
  Nutella spent just $300,000 on media in 2008 and "has all the dimensions of a cult brand,” — Allen Adamson of Landor Associates.
• Cadillac Rolls Out In-Car Internet Access // CNET News
  Autonet Mobile technology can be dealer-installed on the Cadillac CTS as of April — the service will cost $29 per month.
   
• The Uncertain Future of SAP’s Social Media Strategy
  Speculation continues to stir around the enterprise software company’s commitment to Web 2.o.

Related articles