Enterprise 2.0 News

Pretty silently (not like when beta testing was started) the revolutionary service Google Wave has been opened to a public and added to the business suite of Google Apps. Interest towards Google Wave has been reducing since the release of this service (about a year ago). The primary reason for this is its complexity compared to the direct competitor - E-mail. Besides Google Wave appeared to be buggy during testing and scared even geeks. However, now Lars Rasmussen, the Wave project manager, argues that Google Wave is ready for high load and performs fast enough. In addition, developers have simplified adding comments and search for new changes in wave. They also have corrected the lack of integration with email - you can now set the email-notifications about changes in waves (although you can't add comments in the opposite direction - from the email). ***

This week, Microsoft filed a lawsuit against Salesforce, blaming the SaaS company in violating 9 patents. These patents are not about CRM functionality (it would be strange, because Salesforce CRM appeared earlier than Microsoft CRM was developed), but about basic software technologies. For example, here is the technology of displaying web-page with embedded menu: "A request for a web page is received from a web browser In response to the request, a web page and an applet associated with the web page are packaged for transmission to the web browser. The web page and the applet are then transmitted to and downloaded by the web browser. When the web page is displayed and the applet is executed by the web browser, the applet creates and manages an embedded menu in the displayed web page under control of the applet . This embedded menu provides a user of the web browser with a plurality of links through one action in the displayed web page." Perhaps having this patent, Microsoft could close any SaaS vendor, but they have chosen Salesforce, their main competitor on CRM market. ***

In response to the recent launch of VMForce, Google today announced the upcoming version of its cloud platform for enterprise users - Google App Engine for Business. Until now, GAE was actually not suitable for hosting enterprise applications. First, GAE does not provides enterprise-ready support, security and service level guarantees. Besides, it supports only one database - Big Table, which is not used in existing business applications, and locks clients into one platform. The enterprise version of GAE, which is scheduled for 4 quarter of 2010, will fix these issues. Corporate customers will be offered a premium support, 99.9% SLA, administration panel for managing security policies. In addition, GAE will add support for SSL and SQL databases. Instead of difficult-to-forecast scheme of payment for computer resources, the clients will pay a flat rate - $8/month for app user. ***

Video chat in GTalk (or more exactly, in GMail) has appeared more than a year ago. And we were confident that Skype will get the very strong competitor. Nevertheless, Skype's market share hasn't suffered at all. Even GMail users mainly continue using Skype for video calls. Probably, it's a question of a habit and Skype's great popularity. And perhaps, when Google adds calls to regular phones with the help of acquired Gizmo5 - this won't also change anything. Without offering some new revolutionary features, pushing Skype from the market will be extremely difficult. Especially now, when Skype introduced group video calling. However, it seems Google has a new idea. Today the company announced the acquisition of Swedish developer of VoIP and videoconferencing solutions - GIPS. GIPS technologies are used in Yahoo Messenger, Cisco WebEx and Lotus Sametime. And in addition, GIPS has created the best engine for video chat on Android. ***

Last week together with Office 2010, Sharepoint 2010 was officially released. Of course, this is an important event for Enterprise 2.0 industry, however, not so important as we expected. Because despite the fact that Sharepoint 2010 was introduced as a cloud solution, at the moment neither Hosted, nor SaaS version of Sharepoint 2010 are not available. Hosted version (in BPOS-D) will be available only by the end of the year. SaaS-version (Sharepoint Online) by the end of the year will will be available for beta testing and official release is expected only in mid-2011. (We included Sharepoint Online in our Top 10 cloud platforms for Enterprise, but apparently that was too early). And now about the positive moments: Sharepoint 2010 really contains a lot of improvements that will strengthen its (almost monopolistic) position of the intranet platforms market: ***

The world's largest enterprise software vendor, SAP has become even more large. For $5.8 billion SAP has acquired Sybase,  the company primarily known as one of the leading database and enterprise mobile applications vendor. Until now, SAP didn't have its own database and provided customers a freedom of choice in this matter. At the same time SAP was reselling about a billion dollars worth of Oracle databases - a bad idea considering SAP and Oracle are in direct competition. However, it is unlikely that Sybase database will replace all other database middleware in the traditional SAP ERP deployments. On the other hand, it can be very useful for cloud deployments and creation of the own SaaS platform for SAP Business ByDesign. Because Sybase has recently released the cloud version of its database, which is primarily designed for Amazon EC2. ***

Today Skype has rolled out the new beta version for Windows which supports group video calls for up to 5 people. Skype 5.0 beta is now available for download and testing, but with the warning that it may contain a lot of bugs. Despite the fact that the first official screenshot of Skype group video chat shows a boy and a grandmother, it's likely that most of its users will be business employees. Because as soon as the testing finished, the group video chat will become a paid feature. At the same time, there already some free group video chat solutions (for friends and families) on the market, for example, TinyChat, TokBox, PalBee. On the small business market there are also some strong players with paid solutions - ooVoo, SightSpeed and HP SkyRoom. However, everything will depend on the cost and quality, offered by Skype. ***

Today, Microsoft officially launched its Office 2010 for companies using the volume-licensing. For other companies and users the office suite will be available in June. The web-based version - Office Web Apps, that is the main new feature in Office 2010 and its main weapon in competition against Google Docs, will appear also in June. Google responded to the release in very original way - they used the fact that the main competitor to Office 2010 is actually not Google Docs, but Office 2007 (or 2003). The point is that why pay several hundred dollars for the new version of Office 2010 (+ Sharepoint 2010), if using Office 2007 in combination with Google Docs, you can get even more features at virtually no cost. Here is the comparison table, that was published in the Google Enterprise blog: ***

The leading SaaS and Enterprise 2.0 vendors decided to make their business a little more "WOW". In the new show-channell called "I Choose the Cloud" the founders and executives of cloud companies appeal to join the cloud revolution. Because cloud applications mean not only simplicity, usability, speed and cost efficiency. They also mean the new exciting ways of running business. Because these applications are create not by serious gloomy IT-people in ties, but by such cool guys, who enjoy what they do. Guest stars: Aaron Levie (Box.net), Chuck Dietrich (SlideRocket), David Weekly (PBworks), Eugene Lee (Socialtext), Wendy Lea (Get Satisfaction), Clint Oram (SugarCRM), Tien Tzuo (Zuora), Matt Brezina (Xobni) ***

Everyone knows that "talent is everything". Everyone knows that 80% of his time boss should  devote to employees and their motivation. But in practice, boss remember about an employee only when he did something wrong and proved once again that his salary is too high. However, as competition in all areas is growing and business becomes more and more dependent of its talents, this outdated practice will only lead to deadpool. That's why talent management software and services are now experiencing a rapid growth. In the recent SaaS tool ratings talent management (and related technologies - HRM and e-Recruting) - are among most demanded. In this talent management market two gorillas have emerged: Taleo and SuccessFactors. And both these companies provide SaaS solutions. ***