Archive for the 'Enterprise 2.0' Category
August 6, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
Kitchener, Ontario based IGLOO’s foundation began with a not-for-profit research centre called the Centre for International Governance(CIGI) founded by Jim Balsillie, Co-CEO of Research In Motion (RIM)
In 2003, CIGI, created a free online research network called IGLOO (International Governance Leaders and Organizations Online) that connected researchers, practitioners and educators around the world.
By 2008 Igloo.org had further evolved into a for profit firm with a focus on creating On Demand Corporate Social Networking software with Web 2.0 tools for content management, collaboration, social networking and administration.
IGlOO offers 3 versions of it’s Corporate Social Networking (CSN) software:
- Lite Edition
- Pro Edition
- Enterprise Edition
IGLOO’s Lite Edition contains IGLOO’s content management platform and social networking tools and is optimized for corporate pilots, or group work spaces for teams. Priced at $4,999 USD annually or 449 USD per month, the Lite edition comes with a basic self service support portal.
IGLOO’s Pro Edition is designed for company-wide networking and knowledge sharing. Pro Edition adds Corporate Social Networking tools, Blogs, Wiki’s and forums. Data Storage and Data Transfer are increased to 50 GB in the Pro Edition. Pro Edition is priced at $9,999 USD annually or $999 USD per month.
Available add on support packages for both the Lite and Pro Editions include a Silver level of Support for $1,000 USD per year and a Gold Level of Support for $2,500 USD per year.
IGLOO’s Enterprise Edition is designed for use outside of the corporate firewall and adds multiple domains, up to ten online communities, multinational deployment support and free silver level support. Data storage and data transfer clock increase to 100 GB in the Enterprise Edition. Pricing for the Enterprise Edition is based on a number of factors and is not disclosed on the IGLOO website.
IGLOO offers a Wizard based Setup for each of its edition’s. The Setup Wizard allows a user to choose what WEB 2.0 features will be used in the CSN, look and feel of the CSN in addition to administrator tasks such as permission setup and reporting.
IGLOO Web 2.0 tools are similar to tools in competing CSN offerings with the IGLOO differentiator being that the tools are a bit more polished than some of the newer entrants in the CSN Space.
IGLOO is utilized by 150,000 end users at customers including Amnesty International, Arizona State University, Deloitte, Motorola and the Royal Bank of Canada. Future updates of IGLOO will include features like social graphing, Microsoft Outlook integration, additional mobile device support and connectors to Enterprise Apps and Microsoft SharePoint.
IGLOO offers a very comprehensive Corporate Social Network solution that can fit any size non-profit or corporate site. Smaller companies and non-profits may have a hard time digesting the pricing of the Lite Edition but the pricing of IGLOO’s offerings is in line with most of its competitors.
July 31, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
One of the highest profile “spinoffs” to date in the Software As A Service Industry, Zuora aims to disrupt the OnDemand Subscription Billing Industry just like Salesforce.com disrupted the software industry a few years ago.
Based in Redwood City, Zuora provides a OnDemand solution that automates and simplifies online subscription billing services. Zuora’s flagship product is Z-Billing.
Z-Billing is a fully integrated Billing as Service Platform that offers features that are critical to On Demand subscription based businesses such as advanced pricing models, integrated business intelligence and metrics, account management and provisioning, multi-currency support and automated credit card processing.
Z-Billing offers full integration with Salesforce.com but also has an impressive list of pre built integrations for mid level ERP and CRM packages as well as Enterprise level software like Oracle and SAP’s Business Suites. A robust web services API rounds out Z-Billing’s integration offerings and allow a customer to integrate Z-Billing with all of its internal products and systems.
The pricing of the Z-Billing service starts out at 2% of invoiced revenue with additional discounts based on billing volume. Targeted originally towards subscription based online businesses, the Z-Billing team is also focusing on investment firms, analog companies like NetJet and ZipCar and the greater SMB market with its recently announced partnership with StrikeIron.
With 17 live customers since Z-Billing’s May 20th release, Zuora has all the key ingredients in place for success. It has an all star management team lead by CEO Tien Tzuo, former Chief Strategy Officer at Salesforce.com, K.V. Rao; former senior VP at Web Ex and Cheng Zuo; Zuora CTO, who built Web Ex’s Subscription billing systems. Zuora also has a 6.5 million initial funding round led by Benchmark Capital with a substantial investment from the Software as a Service titan; Marc Benioff.
Initial Z-Billing customers include Coremetrics, Cloud 9 Analytics and Marketo. Zuora’s competitors include OpSource (LeCayla), Aria Systems and Evapt.
July 23, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
Mindtouch announced today a new version of its Opensource collaboration and collective intelligence platform. The new version of Mindtouch Deki, “Kilen Woods” introduces new data connection and enterprise integration tools to what is already a very robust Wiki platform.
Aaron Fulkerson, co-founder and CEO, said that:
“MindTouch Deki has evolved into a powerful platform that is the connective tissue for integrating disparate enterprise systems, web services, and Web 2.0 applications, and enables real-time collaboration and collective intelligence - dynamic data collection and application integration.”
New Enterprise Adapters introduced in MindTouch Deki include adapters for:
- SugarCRM
- Salesforce
- LinkedIn
- MySQL
- Microsoft SQL Server, Access and Microsoft ADO.NET
- VisiFire
- PrinceXML
- ThinkFree Office
- WordPress
This new functionality helps MindTouch Deki jump to the front in terms of competing Wiki Platforms as now within a single platform users can create mashups, dashboards, reports etc from within the Wiki interface. This type of enterprise integration will make Wiki’s (if more Wiki platforms are able to catch up with MindTouch and add this type of integration in the future) an easier sell for companies as integration with existing applications is always at the top of the list of wanted features.
MindTouch Deki also differentiates itself from other Wiki platforms in that its existing feature set allows drag and drop in a GUI interface for most of its functionality. This makes adoption within a company a lot easier than other wiki tools in that users do not have to learn html markup etc to create content.
Will be interesting to see if MindTouch can build upon the list of current adapters with integration for high end ERP (SAP, Oracle etc) and CRM (Seible) applications. MindTouch Deki “Kilen Woods” should be available for download by the end of July
July 8, 2008
Written by Ameed Taylor
You know that you are officially in the acceptance (and some would say hype) stage of a technology when writers begin to churn out titles in the genre.
Niall Cook’s new book “Enterprise 2.0 - How social software will change the future of work” is due to be released on 21 July 2008.
In Niall Cook’s words:
“Enterprise 2.0 helps you navigate the emerging social software landscape and introduces you to the key concepts that make up ‘enterprise 2.0’. I explain how the culture of most companies will need to change as a result of the different ways of working that social software enables. The four Cs model at the heart of the book uses practical examples from some of the best-known companies in a range of industry sectors to illustrate how to apply these techniques to encourage communication, cooperation, collaboration and connection between employees and customers in your own company.”
This should be an interesting title as Niall seems to understand the core of Enterprise 2.0 with his focus in the book on the 4 C’s. Also Enterprise 2.0 adoption has been hindered a bit to date by a lack of of clear Enterprise 2.0 use cases and examples and Niall makes extensive use of use cases and examples throughout the book.
Finally “Enterprise 2.0″ has an associated wiki on SocialText that the author hopes will be used as an extension to the book.
My only quibble with the book is that it is only available in its first run as hardcopy (who in this day and age can carry around a heavy 180lb 180 page hardcopy book?) Hopefully future printings will be available in pdf and or paperback.
|
