LIVEBUSINESS

Harmony - a lot of pleasure for Outlook and Google Docs users

Harmony, the new plug-in for MS Outlook by Mainsoft gave us a lot of positive emotions, which we want to share. First, is its video presentation, which is really cool. Secondly, Harmony - is really useful tool that allows to access and collaborate with documents stored in Google Docs or MS Sharepoint, without leaving MS Outlook. In particular, you can open and edit office documents directly in Outlook, search in docs content and share documents with co-workers instead of sending them back and forth. And it's not necessary that your co-workers have this plug-in installed and have Google Docs account - they just click the link in the email and the document will be shared to them automatically (for viewing or editing). ***

Threadbox to Google Wave: All ingenious is simple

Do you still remember Google Wave? This is the super-service which is going to change the world. Why it hasn't done this yet? Because it's too complicated, so bugs will be being fixed for a long time and people will need more time to learn how to work with it. Google Wave was introduced as an alternative to Email. Instead of cumbersome email-correspondence all messages are located on the same page. Great idea, but first, the creators underestimated the people's affection to e-mail, and secondly, they overloaded this page with too many features. Unlike Google Wave, Threadbox is going to be simpler and works perfectly together with the e-mail. ***

Get Satisfaction moves support forums to Facebook

Day by day the consumer marketplace (the place where consumers live, search for goods, shop and interact with suppliers) is moving to Facebook. Almost every FMCG manufacturer has its own fan page on Facebook, where the company representatives communicate with customers and customers communicate with each other. Why not create a support forum there? Get Satisfaction has implemented this idea in Facebook Social Engagement Hub. Now the support request can be that easy as a message to your friend in Facebook. Get Satisfaction - is the most interesting service that enables to create support forums. It allows to use crowdsourcing effectively and reduce the load on your support department. This tool is used by Microsoft, Procter & Gamble, Nike and another 10000 (paying) companies. ***

Google Apps Marketplace - the online app store for Google Apps

As expected, Google has launched the online store Google Apps Marketplace, which allows developers to easily access the Google Apps userbase, which counts 25 million users. More than 50 providers already used this opportunity - now the Google Apps users (directly in the control panel) can add Atlassian Jira bug tracker, DimDim web conferencing, Freshbooks online accounting, Box.net intranet, Manymoon project management, SlideRocket presentations, etc. There you can find even such heavyweights as NetSuite and SuccessFactors. We also note the presence of Zoho apps - Google has once again demonstrated its loyalty towards the competitor. ***

Google Apps are ready for the next earthquake

Recently the planet has become a dangerous place. Haiti, Chile, Turkey. Where will be the next earthquake? What will you do if the roof fall on your server (or data center) and all your business data will be lost? Apparently, Google decided to benefit on this situation and published the post that talks about how Google Apps protect business data from disasters. To ensure the security of user data in Gmail, Google Docs, Google Sites, Google Calendar, Google Talk and Google Video it's beeing synchronized in real time between the two remote data centers. If suddenly one of these data centers will be destroyed, the data will be immediately replicated to the third data center and so on. This technology is used in the large companies, but, for example, real-time synchronization of 25Gb Mailbox costs them $150-500. And Google offers this service for free, despite the fact that the service is used by 2 million companies with 20 million active users. ***

Jason Fried: Why modern workplaces don’t work

Jason Fried, 37Signals co-founder, exactly knows how to create beautiful systems. Basecamp users and Ruby on Rails developers know this. Recently he published the video with his vision of how to create a beautiful workspace (on the example of 37Signals) and how online tools can help. Jason started with the fact that in most companies collaboration is organized absolutely wrong. It's based on the constant interruptions. Employee just turns on the computer, and the interruptions begin: instant messages, email notifications, phone calls and of course, co-workers that come and ask something. No one can work productively in such environment. And, often collaboration software (especially messengers and microblogs) doesn't help to mute this noise, but increase it. ***

Socialtext 4.0 wisely copies Google Groups

Socialtext has released version 4.0 of its enterprise social platform, and the main new feature is the ability to create groups. At first glance it seems that it's a little feature, and the new release is issued only for PR. However, all genious is simple, and Socialtext - is one of those companies that earn good money on these things. Groups - online spaces for communication and collaboration - are important for enterprise. These may be department-centric spaces, or workspaces for project teams, or communities of interest (yes, they are also useful for business, as they bring staff together). But how easy it is to create an online group space, for example, in Sharepoint? It's complicated enough for not creating it at all. ***

Yammer invented b2b microblogging

One of the innovative Enterprise 2.0 trends is applications for business networks. These applications integrate groupware in partner companies and enable collaboration between them. Remember Salesforce to Salesforce or Freshbooks Software as a Network. The pioneer in enterprise microblogging Yammer also decided to join this trend and added the ability to create private b2b communities or workspaces. In single online space the representatives of various companies - customers, vendors, freelancers, partners can collaborate. Each of them has own profile, so that participants can learn more about each other. Every users can view the list of his networks and the number of new messages in each of them. ***

SaaS tools rating. Online Accounting Gains

Goldman Sachs published the new report titled "Techtonics: Unstoppable shift to SaaS continues." In the report they highlighted the results of their survey among the IT managers. The most interesting result of this survey is the rating of SaaS tools adopted by companies. Of course, the leadership of web-conferencing and SFA is not surprising. But at the 3 place we suddenly found the online accounting and billing tools. These financial instruments have even overtaken the classic SaaS applications - Email and Collaboration systems. And last year the number of companies using online accounting increased by 20% and reached almost 50% (of all companies). Here are some other interesting facts from the report: ***

Social Layer in Zoho? Facebook.

Perhaps the main purpose of all enterprise social tools that are now widely deployed in business applications, is to create a Team environment at work. When employees know more about each other, they are more interested in working together and achieving common goals. And where can you find out more about a person? Most likely, in the external social network (like Facebook), he (or she) would express himself better than in the intranet profile. So, why not use Facebook as an internal social network? Today it has become especially easy for Zoho users. Zoho has added support for Facebook Connect and enabled logging in their applications using Facebook account. ***