Twitter now fastest growing social network

According to a new article at Read Write Web, Twitter had 7 million unique visitors in February of 2009, as opposed to 475,000 in 2008, which is a growth rate of 1382% over the year. Surprisingly, the largest age group using Twitter is between the ages of 35-49. The article also states that 62% of the users access the application from work. Read the full article here.

Do you trust cloud computing?

Read Write Web recently took a look at how cloud computing is being accepted by the public. As a major buzz word of 2008, there are many people who are not convinced of the power of cloud computing. They're looking at it as one way to back up data, not a cloud that will keep data safe in one spot.

Some said the cloud was trustworthy enough for non-critical data, but not for secure and private communications, such as those used in the enterprise. And still others noted that trusting cloud services was risky, especially given the recent shutdowns of the once-hot services like I Want Sandy, Pownce, Google Notebook, and Jaiku.

Do you use cloud computing on a regular basis? What are your thoughts? Do you keep multiple backups other than your data in the clouds?

GMail becomes enterprise friendly

A recent article at eWeek looks at how GMail has taken a turn to become an enterprise tool. Some relatively new items that are featured in GMail are:

-Google calendar
-Docs gadgets
-Alerts from calendars
-G Chat available on cell phones

Read the article here.

Hard news from inside the company

In these hard economic times, many companies are forced to cut back. However, many of them are looking to break the news in a more personal way by blogging them. The New York Times ran a story today. Many companies are taking their time to write their story down, as many employees take time to use Twitter and blogs to share their thoughts.

One example is Cake Financial:

Steven A. Carpenter, chief executive of a two-year-old investing advice site, Cake Financial, had blogged about the company’s new weekly video show and its move to new quarters in San Francisco. On Oct. 19, the night before he laid off 30 percent of his employees, he wrote a post about the cutbacks.

The next morning, he met with the six employees he was letting go. Afterward, he clicked the button to publish his post about the “extremely sad day for all of us who have to say goodbye to a group of great people.”

“Our whole company is built on the idea of transparency in investing, so that was a reason why it was important for us to do it,” Mr. Carpenter said in an interview. He also wanted employees and outsiders to know they were each getting the same version of the story. “It let them know what we were up to in real time, so they didn’t get nervous about what was going on,” he said.

Shaking Things up With Alfresco Enterprise 3.0

Paula Rooney writes in this post on ZDNet that Alfresco will be releasing a major upgrade to its current enterprise content management system, Alfresco Enterprise 3.0, which will have many new collaboration features and services.

It is due to be released on Halloween, and it will feature Share which is a collaborative content solution that makes capturing, sharing, and accessing information across virtual teams much simpler. It will also offer support for CMIS specification as well as the Microsoft Office Sharepoint Protocol. It will be interesting to see how the enterprise will respond to Alfresco’s latest offering

Corporate Social Networks according to Robert Scoble

Ed Cone recently had a chance to sit down with Robert Scoble and discuss where web 2.0 and enterprise 2.0 have taken us today. This is just one of his responses about corporate social networks, but check out the rest here.


"A lot of enterprises are looking outward, at the public. They're customers are moving to Twitter, and they're trying to learn how to do it. Some are doing it effectively. Zappos has 400 employees on Twitter. H&R Block talked to me on Twitter while I was doing my taxes -- I twittered that I was at HYR Block getting my taxes done, someone at the company was watching for their name on Twitter, and they wrote back to say, let me know if you need anything. this was while I was in the office. It was more brand building than tax advice. It was the fact that somebody was listening. She was linking to anyone talking about taxes, starting a conversation with them about taxes and H&R Block."

"In terms of internal use of social nets, I just spoke to Cisco's employees. They asked how to use social media, office 2.0, collaborative stuff. I said, My first thought every morning would be, how do I get rid of the email? The crowd cheered. I thought, there's pain here. I touched a nerve."

"I left behind a gig and a half of email when I left NEC - I couldn't look at it, and they erased it. My former coworkers couldn't use that knowledge. A collaborative toolset helps to get information out of email into the shared social space. Sharepoint and others are working on that problem. You see productivity benefits. Now people can see where you are going, make suggestions on who to call there.

Egnyte a new way to embrace Enterprise 2.0

In a recent article published by ZD Net, they take a look at a new software that can help small companies adapt to enterprise 2.0. Some of the benefits it offers are: on demand infrastructure with increased mobility, web 2.0 sharing, virtual collaborative teams and on demand storage.

ZD Net said this about the software:
Egnyte is primarily an on-demand file server. In an ordinary on-site enterprise you’ll get sharing issues, backup issues and disaster recovery, security flaws which need patching, remote access violations and all other kinds of crap a workplace doesn’t need.

For more information, read the article here.

Enterprise Search Merged with Business Intelligence

Enterprise search and business intelligence are two enterprise concepts that people still do not quite fully understand. I came across this podcast on eWeek in which Mike Vizard talks to Sid Probstein, the CTO of Attivio, about the importance of harnessing search technology within the context of a business intelligence application. Take about 15 minutes to listen to this informative podcast.

Listen here.

Coldwell Banker embraces IPhone

Yesterday, we talked about how Nokia is turning their focus to syncing Smartphones to collaborate. In this recent article at Read Write Web, they talk about another company who has embraced the Smartphone revolution. Coldwell Banker, despite the woes on the housing market, have launched a new online version of their website for the iPhone. In this new platform, users are able to search for both homes and home values in real time. Upon reaching the Coldwell Banker website on the iPhone, users are automatically directed to the designed iPhone site.

Even in this time of economic hardship for the housing industry, this company is finding a way to cater to their customers and embrace the new type of enterprise that is rising.

Smart phone is now main focus at Nokia

Nokia recently decided to drop its work with enterprise email and work with partners such as Microsoft, Cisco, and IBM to focus on collaboration between smart phones and enterprise platforms. The plan was mapped out at EWeek.

Niklas Savander, Nokia's executive vice president for services and software, had this to say abou the new focus:

"Together with them, we will use our expertise in devices, as well as the combined channel footprint and customer base, to deliver a range of unbeatable end-to-end offerings for business."

The next James Bond on Facebook?

We've seen a growing trend lately in how web 2.0 tools can be beneficial to recruiting the right people for your organization. Now, one more organization is finding its new workers through the net. In a recent article at CNet, we find out that MI6, the UK's Secret Intelligence Service, is using the networking tool to recruit their next generation of spies.

As the article points out, the job ads placed are relativly simple. Copy used in one says: "Time for a career change? MI6 can use your skills. Join us as an operational officer collecting and analysing global intelligence to protect the UK."

Winner of DemoJam: Enterprise Wide Spell Checking

In Las Vegas this week,SAP hosted their version of American Idol.Encouraging techies to come up with applications to suite the enterprise, seven applications made it to Las Vegas. They were:

- CN Track Inspection System: Canadian National Railways
- Improve SAP Data Quality Using Web-Based User Interfaces with Workflow Approvals and Posting: BackOffice Associates, LLC
- Enterprise-Wide Spell Checking: SAP
- ESME: Enterprise Social Messaging Experiment: Siemens SIS
- Consuming Web Services Using XML Over HTTP: Apple
- ABAP Ninja: Panaya
- iPhone-ize your SAP Data: Xact Soft

In the end, after the fanfare and festivities, Enterprise Wide Spell Checking by SAP won out. For more indepth coverage on the contest, check out ZD Net.

LinkedIn joins forces with CNBC

Recently, CNBC announced its alliance with LinkedIn. This new partnership will allow networking functions to be integrated into CNBC and news and information shared on LinkedIn to create a forum for people to discuss current news with their professional contacts. LinkedIn will remain independent and look to grow their current user base beyond 27 million. LinkedIn will contribute consumer generated content to CNBC such as polls, and LinkedIn will have access to CNBC’s programming, articles, blogs, financial data and video content according to this article at eWeek.

Peek brings email to mobile devices for small businesses

Peek is a mobile phone service setting out to capture an untapped portion of the mobile phone market, aiming for the small business wireless market. According to this article at EWeek, they’ll be partnering with Target to distribute this new wireless email device which is low-cost and can satisfy the email side of those working for small business, and do what the Blackberry is doing for the corporate world.

This wireless start up company decided to tap into this market for the amount of customers that haven’t been satisfied yet. Of the 32 million cell phone users, 15 million manage their email over the phone.

When developing this mobile device, Peek came up with and followed these six objectives to better meet the needs of small businesses:

1. low cost

2. wide, color display with high-contrast fonts

3. an easy-to-use QWERTY keyboard

4. easy-to-set-up access to popular e-mail portals

5. well-designed software that gives a good user experience

6. easy to buy

The Enterprise: Serious Games?

You might ask what does video games and employee training have to do with each other, and then most likely you would find absolutely no answer for it. I came across this post on ZDNet from Larry Dignan which discusses how Forrester Research seems to believe that ‘serious gaming’ will likely come to an enterprise near us very soon. Here’s the full report from Forrester Research. So what’s the business value derived from video games in businesses?

Forrester notes that serious gaming is being used by emergency responders training through scenarios of terrorist attacks, university staff for its business process management game, and Cisco, Hilton Inn, and Johnson & Johnson to teach things like math, customer service skills, and drug development. Interesting enough, this is what Forrester mentions regarding proving ROI:

How do you prove their business worth and ROI? This is the hardest of the five questions facing serious games. For some games, such as advergames, it’s easy to see the link to ROI: For example, Burger King’s three Xbox 360 titles developed by Blitz Games Studios ranked among the top-selling Xbox games over the winter holidays in 2006 and were credited with the company’s 41% profit increase in its second quarter. However, such a 1 to 1 relationship between a game and a desired outcome is often hard to tease out in something as nebulous as diversity training. And for those deploying games, divining whether their target audience internalized the lesson instead of just becoming good at playing the game is paramount.

What’s your take on enterprise gaming? Is there really any business value to this practice?

The current challenges of enterprise 2.0

In a recent article at Read Write Web, they take a look at the current structure of the enterprise and how Web 2.0 components are going to affect the way it runs. The most interesting part to me was the challenges the current enterprise is facing due to their rigid structures and working for decades in the same fashion.

The current challenges according to Bernard Lunn are:

- Demographic time bomb of retiring baby boomers – Now that this generation has mastered the way the enterprise works, they don’t want to change their ways. There will also be decades of lost information if their knowledge isn’t captured before they retire.

- The difficulty of bringing in Gen Y – This generation has grown up with social media, and they don’t want to conform to the rigid power structures that are given by the enterprises.

- Enterprises are all about security, structure and control – With the incoming revolution of social media, we’re seeing two completely different mentalities. As this type of structure hits the enterprise, we’ll see it make waves as the enterprise tries to adjust to this new social concept.

- Figuring out what is core and non-core is hard – With all of the new components moving into the enterprise, when current careers tend to see that most things are done in house.

Did Lunn leave out any of the challenges your company is currently facing?

5 Issues IT Want to Address about Enterprise 2.0

The addition of web 2.0 tools and applications in the enterprise has put immense pressure on IT depts that require knowledge of COBOL, C, and other modern technologies. Jeremy Chone lists 5 issues that IT managers and CIO’s should let their staff be aware of before starting a modernization process in this post on ZDNet.

1. There is no history of the code: Since applications have evolved over the years through upgrades and new features, it makes the underlying code behind web 2.0 technologies a bit challenging to fully understand.
2. We don’t know exactly how many applications we have or how they all work together: Applications are being installed, updated, and ran throughout the company without notification of IT. A lot of time is spent maintaining existing codes.
3. We’re actively seeking a new job: IT turnover rate is at an average of 22%. Two factors contribute to a lapse in progress. The younger generation might not be as interested to work on older technologies and 30 percent of the legacy application experts will be eligible for retirement in three years.
4. You can’t prove the ROI: You can not talk in terms such as faster, stronger, and cheaper. You must instead prove that project skills will be enhanced and that the company will save on costs and time by employing before and after metrics.
5. You need to share your vision: IT has front-line knowledge and so being kept in the loop of future plans 5, 7, 10 years down the line can weigh in on strategy.

What other challenges and issues do IT depts face in regards to enterprise 2.0?

New Smart Phone Available

A new phone has come to the business world. We’ve already told you about the importance that cell phones are playing in the growing demand for social networking. E Week recently shed light on the newest Treo Pro to allow us to network, and more, with a new smart phone. Palm, Inc, has developed a new series of phones based on Microsoft Software, and their direct competitor will be Blackberry. New tools on this phone include WiFi, to boost internet speed where reception is low, and GPS technology. Palm, Inc, developed this phone specifically to target the 90% of the market who don’t already have smart phones.

This phone will be carried by Vodafone Group PLS and O₂ in Europe and Telstra in Australia. Although there is currently no US carrier, Palm Inc, expects to see a demand for unlocked phones that will work on any network.

Why does Zoho Compete with Google?

The question of why and how Zoho competes with Google has been asked many times across this industry. Zoho CEO Sridhar Vembu details why Zoho competes with Google in his latest post at the Zoho Blog.

Sridhar includes an excel sheet in his post that lists revenue per employee and profit per employee between companies like Microsoft, Oracle, SAP, Adobe, Google, Yahoo, and eBay to name a few. What this sheet helps show is that all companies fall short of Google’s revenue/profit per employee metrics. Sridhar believes that even though Google has a huge market in the technologies sector, there’s no rational business incentive for Google to actively pursue the business/IT software category. Zoho already has an array of software applications like Zoho Writer, Zoho Sheet, Zoho CRM , Zoho People , and Zoho Mail just to name a few, it will be interesting to see what steps Google might take in the future to involve itself more heavily in the business software market.

What’s your take on it?

Is Google Apps Enterprise Ready?

I came across this post on eWeek this morning which gathers insights from different analysts on the idea that is floating around with the recent infrastructure outages from Google Gmail and Google Apps. Does this mean that Google’s software is not yet dependable for the enterprise?

Melissa Webster, an analyst at IDC, mentions that corporate networks, and email systems have outages all the time. Abner Germanow, another analyst at IDC said that in the beginning companies are not too attached to apps, but as time goes by the level of reliability on the application increases as well. The real question lies: Is the application reliable enough to run a business on it? Can your business afford any downtime in case of outages?

Dana Gardner, founding analyst of InterArbor Solutions claims that organizations go through email outages internally regularly, it is just that users from web based apps have higher expectations than those who pay higher for internalized communication systems.

How has the recent outages of Google Apps affected the enterprise and cloud computing realm?