Posts Tagged ‘social software’

What’s Next for Enterprise Social?

Wednesday, December 14th, 2011

The following post is by Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo.

Enterprise Social Gets Serious

First, Chatter. Now Jive goes public. All this is great news, validating the idea that the enterprise benefits from social networks as much as we do in our private lives. People have become accustomed to interacting on Facebook; they want enterprise-class tools that enable them to share content and interact with co-workers just as easily.

What’s Missing?

This is all new for the enterprise, so IT has questions: What about security for the “real” world? What about integration with existing infrastructure assets? What about cost of ownership? Ultimately, organizations need an approach to evolving a social intranet that takes into consideration user needs, security and flexibility. IT teams need to be able to evaluate on a small scale and broaden the adoption on demand. They need an easy on-ramp and an easy path to enterprise-wide adoption.

All of these needs, in turn, point towards the value of an Open Source solution. Security? Vendor independence? Rapid innovation? Open Source solutions are already proven in these regards. But more than that: the Open Source movement understands social better than anyone. That’s the way Open Source development works.

What’s New: An Open Source Alternative

The need for enterprise-class Open Source social business software prompted eXo to develop eXo Platform 3.5 Community Edition. Released to customers last Sunday, eXo Platform 3.5 Community Edition already delivers features that rival Jive — but with greater flexibility and control, and an easier on-ramp to adoption.

So, we’re pleased that the IPO for Jive has gone so well. The response from the market clearly validates the work that Jive, eXo and others have been doing to develop social business software. It also highlights the need for alternatives that support a variety of enterprise needs — and we’re very happy to be part of that community.

To learn more about eXo Platform 3.5 Community Edition, or to download the software, please visit http://budurl.com/uyn3.

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Benjamin Mestrallet is founder and CEO of eXo, the enterprise Java portal and cloud user experience platform (UXP) company. He oversees the Company’s growth, marketing and sales strategy from its U.S. headquarters in San Francisco. For more information on eXo, please visit http://exoplatform.com. For additional perspectives, please visit and subscribe to eXo RSS blog feeds at http://blog.exoplatform.org/. Follow eXo on Twitter at @exoplatform.

Readers are welcome to publish the above blog in full or in part with attribution according to the Creative Commons license.

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eXo Extends Seesmic into Java Enterprises

Thursday, December 2nd, 2010

SAN FRANCISCO, Calif. (December 2, 2010) – eXo today announced that its user experience platform, eXo Platform, is now integrated into the Seesmic Desktop application. The integration extends Seesmic to thousands of eXo enterprise users at large financial services, insurance and telco companies as well as public sector agencies. These organizations have modernized their Java systems with eXo Platform, bringing the rich, social features of the consumer web to their Java applications. Now, from Seesmic Desktop, users can access real-time updates from their eXo-based applications, alongside their Twitter, Linkedin and Facebook activity streams.

News Highlights

  • eXo Platform is a social intranet, integrated web content management system and modern application development platform in one for Java enterprises. It provides a framework for integrating existing Java and third-party applications – even those written in Ruby, PHP and .NET – or rapidly building applications, mashups or REST custom APIs.
  • Initially launched as a Twitter client, Seesmic Desktop can now manage multiple accounts across several services, including Facebook, Google Buzz, Linkedin and Twitter. With Seesmic Desktop, Seesmic is expanding the use of the Desktop application beyond personal social networks to enterprise applications such as eXo Platform. The new marketplace has over 50 social networking, entertainment, utilities and e-commerce integrations to extend the functionality of their desktop application far beyond Facebook and Twitter.
  • Integration of eXo services inside Seesmic Desktop offers convenient access for enterprise users. Real-time updates from co-workers, teams and applications are syndicated inside the application, alongside other services that users frequently access already, such as their Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter accounts.
  • By integrating enterprise activity streams into a familiar ‘daily use’ sort of tool like Seesmic, eXo makes it easier for users to track, respond and collaborate on business-related activities – even when they’re not logged into their company social intranet.

Supporting Quotes

Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo: “The expansion of Seesmic Desktop into the enterprise further fuels the consumerization of IT that is blurring the lines between the personal and the corporate. Increasingly, our customers want the ease and features of the consumer web in their day-to-day corporate computing life, and eXo integrated into Seesmic does just that.”

Loïc Le Meur, CEO of Seesmic: “Our plug-in architecture on Seesmic Desktop allows enterprise players like eXo to expand the reach of their services to social networks. With the integration into Seesmic Desktop, eXo now brings together the internal feeds of an organization and the external feeds of all the social services available on our platform.”

Online Resources

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eXo Delivers First User Experience Platform for Java

Monday, September 20th, 2010

eXo Platform 3.0 marks the future of Java application development: enterprise content management, collaboration, social and rich UI with enterprise portal capabilities

JAVA ONE (BOOTH #5209), SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 20, 2010) – eXo today delivered the next generation of its flagship product, eXo Platform 3.0. Architected on the new GateIn portal framework, eXo Platform 3.0 offers the first integrated environment for building modern Java applications with features such as content management, collaboration and social. The product’s features will be showcased this week at Java One (booth #5209).

Why Use eXo Platform 3.0

Enterprises have invested millions in their Java infrastructure, but now those applications are beginning to show their age, especially when compared to the user experience and collaboration driven by the consumer web. End users of Java applications are demanding more than most Java shops can deliver in terms of collaboration, personalization and dynamic content.

“Until now, Java developers have been cobbling together a wide range of ‘best of breed’ software for content management, collaboration or social into their Java systems — because their only other option has been SharePoint,” said Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo. “You shouldn’t have to throw out our Java investments to get these capabilities. With eXo Platform 3.0, Java enterprises now have a user experience platform for building modern Java apps with rich, interactive and social features — all in a modular architecture that developers are used to.”

eXo Platform 3.0 runs on standard Java middleware, but leverages REST services, Groovy, JavaScript, mashups and gadget-based development to build user-centric Java applications.

What You Can Do with eXo Platform 3.0

eXo Platform 3.0 offers all the capabilities expected of an enterprise portal. It leverages GateIn, the portal framework that eXo co-develops with Red Hat, to build portal-based applications complete with features like access control and single sign-on (SSO) for security.

But eXo Platform 3.0 goes well beyond an enterprise portal to provide:

  • A social intranet: Build an intranet by turning an LDAP directory into an enterprise social network where employees can connect and interact; teams can collaborate in their own online work spaces; and real-time updates and relevant information can be published in activity streams to the right people.
  • An integrated web content management (WCM) system: Quickly build and launch dynamic web 2.0 websites with a full suite of tools, including automated workflow for content publishing, version control and templates.
  • An application development platform for modern Java applications: With a REST architecture and native APIs, eXo Platform 3.0 is an extensible framework for building composite applications quickly and easily. eXo Platform 3.0 includes a web-based IDE for building and integrating applications, gadgets and mashups.

Technical Advantages

  • Unlimited extensibility: Create custom REST APIs on the fly to integrate any third party applications — even from .NET, PHP and other programming languages.
  • GateIn extensions: This new mechanism significantly simplifies application development. Developers can augment and customize GateIn’s features using extensions — without the need to modify the underlying GateIn framework itself. Upgrades to future versions will only require artifacts with the modified files.
  • Powerful and scalable content repository: By keeping applications’ structured data in a content repository, eXo Platform 3.0 provides developers with advanced capabilities that are lacking in traditional databases, including versioning, locking and more. IT operations also benefit from a wide range of management and monitoring functions — all provided in a scalable, clusterable architecture optimized for the consumer web.
  • Extensive open standards and protocol support: These include Java Content Repository (JCR), Java Portlet specification (JSR-286), JAX-RS for REST services and Content Management Integration Specification (CMIS). eXo Platform also implements the OpenSocial specification for gadgets and social APIs for People and Activity.

Availability & Support

eXo Platform 3.0 is immediately available for purchase or with a 30-day trial subscription that includes three support tickets. Download eXo Platform 3.0 today.

Online Resources

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eXo and Jaspersoft Integrate Collaboration and Business Intelligence

Monday, September 20th, 2010

Companies demonstrate the power of Jaspersoft with eXo Platform’s rich social and collaboration featuress

JAVA ONE (BOOTH #5209), SAN FRANCISCO, CA (September 20, 2010) – eXo eXo, the Java user experience platform company, and Jaspersoft, the world’s most widely deployed business intelligence software, have teamed up to highlight the power of enterprise business intelligence (BI) integrated with rich social and collaboration features. The two companies will be showcasing the combination of Jaspersoft Enterprise with eXo Platform 3.0, announced today, at Java One (booth #5209).

News Highlights

  • The eXo and Jaspersoft interoperability brings new tools for extending BI applications with collaboration workspaces and real-time activity streams — in a social intranet, or as a gadget that can be added to dashboards. Developers can further enhance this integration, while business users have more customization options for their reports and dashboards.
  • eXo Platform can be integrated with Jaspersoft in minutes with a simple, free plug-in, which will be available for download by the end of this month.
  • eXo Platform 3.0 is the first integrated environment for building modern Java applications with features such as content management, collaboration and social. It is based on open standards and open source, including the GateIn portal framework eXo co-develops with Red Hat.
  • Jaspersoft Enterprise is a high-performance business intelligence solution that can be deployed as either a stand-alone or embedded application, providing easy to use web based reports, dashboards, and data analysis capabilities.

Collaboration + BI Together Deliver:

  • BI Events in Activity Streams: Automatically syndicate JasperReports events and user interactions in activity streams, enabling users to see relevant information, such as newly available or modified reports, in real-time.
  • Single View Analysis of Multiple Activity Streams: Developers can mashup activity streams from several third-party applications with eXo, then analyze the social data captured over time in a single report from Jaspersoft. This reduces the need for multiple reports, and also provides analysis of separate but related data sources.
  • Gadgets and Dashboards: Developers can quickly build gadgets to display their BI activity streams, which can be displayed in any OpenSocial-supported dashboard, from an enterprise intranet to iGoogle.

Supporting Quotes

Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo: “eXo just rolled out eXo Platform 3.0 today, and we could not have a better way to demonstrate its capabilities than in this interoperability with Jaspersoft. By social-enabling their enterprise BI application to push out real-time information, eXo Platform 3.0 can provide enhanced collaboration for BI developers — while the ability to report on historical content and activity streams shows how easy it is to extend and connect with eXo.”

Brian Gentile, CEO of Jaspersoft: “eXo recognizes Jaspersoft as the best-in-breed BI provider by choosing to demonstrate the extensibility of eXo Platform by interoperating with Jaspersoft’s enterprise BI application. This collaboration shows the power of these two open platforms to solve customer needs and deliver updates to decision makers as they happen.”

Online Resources

  • More information about the eXo-Jaspersoft interoperability effort
  • Video: demo of eXo and Jaspersoft integration
  • Video: example of multiple activity streams mashed up to create a single developer dashboard
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eXo Accelerates Modern Java Application Development with Early Adopter Program

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Customers can begin prototyping modern Java applications for the forthcoming eXo Platform 3.0 through new program

SAN FRANCISCO, CA (July 21, 2010) – eXo today announced the eXo Early Adopter Program designed to give Java enterprises access to the training and technical resources they need to begin rolling out cutting-edge, rich Java applications built on eXo Platform 3.0. The company’s much-anticipated flagship offer, planned for general availability by the end of the year, has been re-architected with the fast, modern portal framework co-developed by eXo and Red Hat, GateIn.

In recent months, eXo has delivered new and updated community versions of all the key components in eXo Platform 3.0 to run on GateIn 3.0: eXo Social, eXo Content, eXo Collaboration and eXo Knowledge. The Early Adopter Program goes beyond a beta program, and instead offers eXo’s most innovative customers and other Java enterprises a realistic path to modernizing their legacy Java applications.

The training and developer support offered through the Early Adopter Program is designed to help developers begin prototyping a new breed of rich, interactive, social Java applications that can run popular Java environments such as JBoss, Spring, Tomcat or IBM WebSphere. Applications developed today will be compatible with the GA release. These services will be delivered by eXo’s technical product leaders.

Program Details

  • Early access to all updates between now and final GA.
  • Three-hour web-based trainings on all eXo components comprising eXo Platform 3.0.
  • One-year Developer Subscriptions, giving users support on community and beta releases.
  • Discounts on eXo Platform 3.0 Production Subscriptions down the road.
  • Participation in the Early Adopter Program is a one-time $5,000 fee, which can be applied to the future purchase of a Production Subscription.

Supporting Quotes

Benjamin Mestrallet, founder and CEO of eXo: “The enthusiasm we’re seeing for eXo Platform 3.0, even in this early stage, validates the heavy investment we’ve made to deliver the best user experience platform on the market for Java enterprises. The Early Adopter Program, which we initially opened to select customers, has been so well received that we’re opening it up to more enterprises looking for a ‘SharePoint’ of their own that would work with their existing Java systems and make the most of their Java talent. This program puts the power of the eXo Platform in developers’ hands, with a practical roadmap to get them from design and development to production.”

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