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VMware on April 18 upgraded its cloud-based Socialcast enterprise social network and collaboration suite by adding several new capabilities to Version 6.
Socialcast, acquired by VMware in May 2011, is similar to Microsoft Yammer, Moxie and Salesforce.com’s Chatter in that it is used inside an enterprise’s firewall to enable employees and contractors (as needed) to share, develop and present documents, conversations, presentations, photos, video and any other business files needed for a project.
The Socialcast Activity Stream engine captures, filters and organizes relevant activities, events, conversations and interactions into a live, searchable online workspace used by team members and communities to stay connected.
“Socialcast is designed for Fortune 2000, Fortune 5000 enterprises,” Igor Spivak, VMware product manager, told eWEEK. “It can be used for team-based and individual project management. We’re also tailoring it for individual use cases in vertical markets.”
New capabilities in SocialCast 6 include the following:
Integrated project management: With the introduction of Projects, Socialcast is the first enterprise social network to fully integrate project management and activity tracking, providing a single place for the day-to-day flow of work that now spans multiple systems. SharePoint, CRM, ERP, email—many other apps—can be plugged in. Socialcast Projects allows teams to keep track of project deliverables, action items and due dates without spreadsheets, emails or status meetings.
Secure real-time messaging from anywhere: Socialcast Messenger has a free mobile application companion to Socialcast Private Message that allows users to have ad hoc conversations with individuals or teams, and share files and photos from the road, along with location information. Messenger stays synchronized with Socialcast so all work-related communications are in one place.
Enhanced community management: An improved command and control interface for community administrators allows the configuration and customization of communities to fit the unique requirements of their culture. Management of security, employee access, integration with other business systems, auditing and reporting are all centralized.
SocialCast integrates its social layer with common business applications such as email, CRM, ERP or Microsoft SharePoint. Socialcast thus aims to enable people to be more focused and productive and reduce time spent on email, setting up meetings and chasing down supporting documents.
Version 6 of Socialcast is available now as an on-premise or software as a service (SaaS) deployment.