collaboration

Philadelphia-based collaboration tool WizeHive is getting a handful of useful updates today.

The service, which is aimed at helping both groups and individuals manage projects and juggle tasks, is evolving into something designed to replace desktop productivity software with features like an integrated word processor, file previewer, and storage with versioning controls that let users roll back to an older version of any file.

Starting today, WizeHive users can create and collaborate on Zoho documents from within WizeHive, and without having to open a Zoho account. Whatever they save is also stored along with the rest of their files and … Read more

There was a time when vendors knew how to color inside the lines. A database vendor sold databases. An operating system vendor peddled operating systems. And application server vendors were in the business of selling application servers.

Customers knew what "application server" meant, which is what paved the way for low-cost, high-value open-source application servers like JBoss, Geronimo, and others to arise. The category was well understood. The only thing the customer had to decide was whether she wished to overspend on a brand-name application server or buy into an open-source upstart.

As the economy continues to pressure … Read more

Waiting to get your grubby mitts on Google Wave? You'll have to wait just a little bit longer.

While about 6,000 developers got their hands on Wave Monday, a post on the Google Wave developer blog says the company isn't planning to open it up to everyday users until September 30th. At that time, some 100,000 users will be let into the program. To be a part of that first run, users will have had to have signed up to use the service on Google's invite page.

Along with a hard date on the semi-public … Read more

Cisco Systems CEO John Chambers calls video "the killer app," but apparently, he hasn't been paying attention to trends on the Web, or even to his company's own emerging-collaboration story.

Video, while great, takes too long. We e-mail, instant-message, and tweet for a reason: it's short and to the point. Who has time to watch a video each them they want to communicate?

Perhaps even more critically, as Hampus Jakobsson pointed out to me (over Twitter, no less), video "requires full attention--the scarcest of all resources."

Cisco gets this. At least, groups within … Read more

As Cisco Systems adds more functionality to its online WebEx conferencing service, it's ratcheting up the competitive pressure against partner and rival, Microsoft.

Cisco held a press event Tuesday to discuss how it plans to add more to its WebEx service. As the company includes more software into the conferencing service, it is competing more intensively and directly with one of its major partners, Microsoft.

"As Cisco expands this business, the co-opetition between Cisco and Microsoft will only increase," said Zeus Kerravala, an analyst with Yankee Group. "Microsoft is strong on the desktop and Cisco is … Read more

Several blog posts this week, combined, pinpoint what are arguably the two most influential trajectories for the impact of communication technologies on business these days: from real-time web to real-time business, and from social media to social business design.

Let’s start with the former. Referring to Salesforce.com founder and CEO Marc Benioff and his presentation at the Structure 09 conference in San Francisco last week, DigitalBeat claims that the real-time web is not only shaping the future of all computing but also that of business overall: “In business it’s real-time or it’s no time.” It goes … Read more

Flash gaming site Kongregate has a new service launching on Wednesday called the Collabs that lets musicians and artists share their work in the hopes of getting it used in upcoming Flash games. Content creators upload their works directly to Kongregate where it goes into a directory that's curated by several of the site's power users.

The Collabs are not just for developers though. Kongregate users can listen to music and view animations, as well as rate them the same way they're able to do with the service's games. In a phone interview, Kongregate's CEO … Read more

Fuzzy scheduling tool Liquid Planner is expanding its reach into the collaborative task management market with a neat new feature called project portals. These are group pages that offer some of the same basic collaboration features you get with the core product, however they can be branded and shared with anyone else who is not a paying Liquid Planner customer.

Any project you're working on in Liquid Planner can now become "portalized." These pages serve as a central place to access shared files and lets outside users keep track on a project's status and ongoing tasks … Read more

Mobile workers today still face challenges in bouncing from wired to wireless to cellular workspaces. Cisco believes it may have a solution.

The networking giant on Tuesday announced a new initiative called Collaboration in Motion, designed to help workers on the go by integrating different services for the mobile market.

Collaboration in Motion will bring together a variety of products from Cisco's network portfolio. The mix includes Cisco's WebEx virtual meeting tool, its Unified Communications platform, the Cisco Unified Wireless Network, and Cisco Advanced Services for technical support. The company hopes the new project will bridge the gap … Read more