Live Enterprise

Email strikes back (on Intranet Portals)

Email was the first collaboration tool in the Intarnet. Then intranet portals emerged, and they wanted to kill Email because of its lacks: instead of sending back and forth messages and documents, they are placed on a portal web-page (for example, in the news, on the forum or file cabinet). But due to the fact that people got used to e-mail and email was also used for external communications - intranet portals failed to replace the Email as a primary workspace. Moreover, recently Email launched the counterattack. And it happened because the major enterprise Email-solutions (GMail, Outlook, Lotus Notes) have become the platforms that allow third-party developers to add new functionality. ***

VMWare wants to become Microsoft of the Cloud Computing era

Previously, when enterprise software was running on servers and desktops, Microsoft ruled the IT market. It supplied the operating systems for servers and desktops, as well as tools for developing applications for these OS. As the cloud technologies emerge, servers and desktops are no longer the central objects of IT infrastructure. Software moves to private and public clouds. Desktops are used just as thin clients (terminals with a browser) and the need in servers disappears at all. And since the basis of cloud technology is virtualization - the power goes to the company, that owns 80% of the virtualization market - VMWare. ***

Google Wave will become an out-of-the-box software. Still may kill Email

Google has published its plan concerning the Google Wave. And this plan has returned us to the optimism, which we had after the first presentation of this revolutionary product. The company will release an open-source version Wave in a Box, which can be installed on your own server. This version will include the core functionality of the Google Wave and will support all necessary tools for developers - gadgets, robots and data API. Thus, instead of the single SaaS service, we will have a large number of corporate Wave servers, which can exchange data via the open Wave-protocol. And the further Wave development will be implemented by the companies and users themselves. Probably, this new strategy will be even more appropriate for the main goal of Google Wave - to kill Email. ***

Battle for the Cloud Storage: HP vs Dell

During the past 2 weeks Dell and HP made a real battle for the cloud storage company 3PAR. It all started on August 16, when Dell "agreed" to buy 3PAR for $1.15 billion. Immediately HP entered the game and offered $1.6 billion. The companies had been rising their bids several times - in result the price has grown to $2 billion (the HP's bid). At this moment theoretically HP is the winner of the battle, because Dell should have placed the next bid before the end of this Wednesday, but it haven't. So why these two serious companies arranged the poker game for the storage system, and why among all other vendors they have chosen 3PAR? ***

GMail will save your Attention

Attention - is more precious resource than time. And e-mail - is a black hole, which draws your attention. While spending just a few minutes to check your inbox, you can spend a lot of (units) of attention - tire your brain and significantly reduce its efficiency (especially if you use to check your email every half an hour). Until now, GMail users had some advantage in this issue. GMail provides, perhaps the world's best spam filter. Besides, tags, stars, customizable filters, discussion threads help to make the mailbox more clear. But nowadays, when an average office worker receives 110 emails per day - it's not enough. That is why the GMail developers came up with the new revolutionary GMail feature - Priority Inbox . ***

Cisco may acquire Skype

Several more or less reliable sources reported that Cisco is going to buy Skype before the company complete the IPO process. If this is true, then Cisco will strenthen its leadership on the video and unified communications markets. This acquisition will also mean the synergy of corporate and consumer communications (which is beneficial for both companies and their customers). Moreover, the protocol of these communications - will be closed, which perfectly fits Cisco's strategy and will protect its monopoly. On the other hand, the current Skype co-owners (Silver Lake) are also co-owners of Avaya - the main Cisco's competitor on the unified communications market. And they are not interested in creating such a monster as Cisco Skype. But the supposed price tag - $ 5 billion - can be a very strong argument. Recall that two years ago Google was also going to buy Skype, but antitrust concerns may have persuaded them not to make an actual offer. ***

Kayako reborned and rebranded

Kayako is completely updating its suite of web support tools. For more than 2 years the development team worked on the new version Kayako V4, rewriting its code from the scratch in order to create the world's best online Helpdesk system. And to gain the effect of the new version release Kayako decided to rename it. So, Kayako SupportSuite is now Kayako Fusion, online chat LiveResponse -> Kayako Engage, ticket system eSupport -> Kayako Resolve. In addition, the suite will include the remote support Kayako OnSite (which we already reviewed), the desktop application Kayako Desktop, alert notifier Kayako Notify and mobile client Kayako Mobile (which will support iOS, Android and Blackberry). At the moment the new tools are in beta status and available for download on Kayako's website. ***

GMail = Unified Communications client

Few days ago the analytical company Frost & Sullivan stated that Google will soon storm the unified communications market, which is dominated by Cisco, Avaya and Microsoft. After all, Google has GMail, Google Voice, GTalk, Buzz, Gizmo5, Android, GISP and it remains just to combine all these technologies into single offering. And Google has decided to immediately confirm this forecast - from today GMail allows you to make and receive phone calls (thanks to the integration with Google Voice and Gizmo5). Meanwhile the VoIP service in GMail is available only in US. ***

Location-services - the new local map that your clients use

Formerly American businessmen used to say that there are 3 main things for business success: "location, location and ... location". To attract more customers to your store, restaurant, hotel or club you just needed to get a shop on a central street and make a shining banner. But perhaps soon the location and banner will be less important than your business position on the location-services, like Foursquare, Gowalla, Yelp, or the newcomer Facebook Places. These services, which combine geolocation, social networks and mobile devices - create a new virtual local map, based on customer recommendations. What are these location-services and how you can use them for your business? ***

Online Office Search: Google vs Zoho

At last Google (aka Search giant) has decided to make the search in Google Apps more convenient. We can't say that until now it was bad, but if you wanted to find an email - you had to open GMail, if you wanted to find a document - you opened Google Docs, etc. Thus, to get a full view about any client or task you had to collect data from various sources. Now GMail has added a new feature called Google Apps Search that allows to the search for documents from Google Docs and pages from Google Sites right inside your inbox (you can activate this feature in the GMail Labs). Unfortunately, this search does not include results from Google Calendar and Google Notebook. Unlike Google, Zoho was more fundamental in online office search. Early this summer it released Zoho Search, which is a separate service (like google.com) that can search in all major Zoho apps. As you can see, Zoho prefers to create new services, and Google is positioning GMail, as the primary user interface for all Google Apps applications. ***