Enterprise Versions Of Twitter (updated)

There are several emerging (e.g., ESME, Laconica (open source), OraTweet (Oracle), SocialCast, Present.ly, and Yammer, etc.) but so far, none address to my satisfaction the issues posed below (which I happened to post on the Present.ly support forum).

Directory, Archive/Audit, Security/Compliance / Enterprise / Discussion Area - Present.ly Support

Most IT organizations will treat "Twitter-like" tools as they do Enterprise IM products which will raise questions such as:

1. Directory integration
2. Policy management (including policies assigned to people in certain roles or groups)
3. Archive (for audit, compliane, records management, etc)
4. Security (access controls, etc)
5. Integration with anti-virus and content filtering tools
6. Integration with Microsoft Communicator and IBM Sametime
7. Application development (plug-ins, integration with productivity tools)

I know there's a lot here but these tools are going to be asked such questions by many IT groups, hosted or on-premise.

Directory, Archive/Audit, Security/Compliance / Enterprise / Discussion Area - Present.ly Support

I would add one more: 8. enterprise-class administration tools to support some of the above requirements.

The biggest adoption barrier for these types of tools will be similar to what organizations have to do with any communication method re: security, records management (e.g., e-discovery), compliance and other burdens placed on enterprise IM.

(Added after posting): One thing I forgot to mention - there will be a race of sorts between IM vendors/products and these social messaging tools. For instance, can Microsoft exploit its acquisition of Parlano and deliver it as a Twitter-like service within OCS and can IBM expand Sametime to emulate the application behaviors of Twitter-like tools. The rationalization will be along the lines of "workers already spend time in their IM client so why give them another communication tool and cause them to switch back-and-forth" or "let leverage the the infrastruction deployed which already handles the archival needs", etc etc...

BTW - no response yet from the vendor.

Comments

[James Dellow]

What are you thoughts about competition between the actual concepts of persistant chat (already in products like Parlano and Sametime) vs microblogging? In large organisations that want to support internal conversation, should you have one or the other, or is there room for both?

[Sid Haniff]

I'd echo the comments of James above. A lot of enterprise IM offerings have both persistent chat, and chat channels where interested users can participate and follow the conversations of others. These have been used to great effect in organisations that I've worked in. Adding a microblogging service in these cases would only serve to dilute and already powerful tool.

[Sjaak Ursinus]

Not can not agree completyly with the above comment @Jame & @Sid as Persitent chat is a chta channel with a subject.

So for instance you will have a persistent chat called "Coffe corner" or "New organization structure" or similiar subjects. Twitter like services are more directed to the person itself !!! And thats al about what Social software is !!! The needs and the subject needs to be created by the hive itself and not by the people who are in top of them or manage them.

So I totally Disagree that Persitent Chat is similiar to microblog services like twitter. Twitter is people centric and Persitent Group Chat is Community Centric.

Thats the same than saying that email looks like IM :-)

Hope you people see the differance

PS if IBM will come up with a microblogging feature it will be in integratde into Lotus Connections (I am sure about that) and not into sametime. The anlu question will be is IBM gonna make that in the new version released ro be soon v2.5 (I hope so)

[Garrett Wolthuis]

I've been thinking along these same lines myself. (IdeaJam) I'm hoping Lotus can incorporate Twitter/Facebook like abilities into the Sametime client. This would solve all the concerns listed above regarding security, directory, archiving, etc.

[Garrett Wolthuis]

Edited to Add: My IdeaJam link didn't work. Please visit it at http://ideajam.net/IdeaJam/P/ij.nsf/0/0F9434854960A34F86257524005EF262?OpenDocument and vote as you think best.

[Dennis Howlett]

@Mike I respectfully disagree with your blanket dismissal of the enterprise Twitter space in the way you have. (Declared interest in ESME as you may already know.)

You might wish to know that ESME is now a part of the Apache Incubator scheme. That gives access to a lot of thought leadership in providing tools that are not wedded to proprietary platforms and access to enterprise class development skills.

Speaking personally (my colleagues might disagree) but I see little value in aligning to IBM for instance when they have their own solution in the works and tend to exhibit an 'only made here' attitude to solution selling.

We provided solid process integrations to SAP NetWeaver as part of the early alpha and despite your reservations, have pilots ongoing in a number of places, one of which we can mention is Siemens.

I'd be happy to get our business process and technology leads to provide you with a technical briefing if that works.

In the meantime, I'd refer you to the blog: http://blog.esme.us where you can keep tabs on what's happening.

Thanks for your attention.

[Yancy Lent]

@Mike, how about a paradigm shift, from the cloud to an on-premise offering? A lot of what you're looking for is more easily and more safely deliver this way.

Broadcastr at http://www.broadcastr.net offers just this. You can use the online version to demo but the deliverable is offered as a LAMP virtual machine.

Directory integration via LDAP was one of its first features. This friendly side of the firewall approach addresses many of the line items you've listed above.

[David]

Here's some recent news. It looks like microsoft is moving into the micro-blogging space with SharePoint 2010.

This makes a lot of sense to me for them to do this. SharePoint is quickly growing as the virtual workspace for an organization and the profiles will just morph into Facebook acocunts.

SharePoint as "collaboration space" instead of OCS as "communiaiton channel" makes a lot more sense for Enterprise Social networking to go there.