Connectbeam News
Connectbeam announces Connectbeam Spotlight 3.0 at Enterprise 2.0!
Enterprise Social Search and Discovery Leaps Forward with Connectbeam Spotlight 3.0
BOSTON, Mass. - June 9, 2008 - During the kick-off of the Enterprise 2.0 Conference in Boston, Connectbeam announced timing for the next major release of its flagship product, Connectbeam SpotlightTM 3.0 (formerly referred to simply as Connectbeam). Significant changes include core tagging and tag-suggestion enhancements, support for RSS and email feeds plus a completely updated and streamlined user interface, integration with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 and Microsoft Outlook.
Driven by enthusiastic customer feedback following the 2.2 release this past April, Connectbeam has responded to all major recommendations and is planning for availability of Connectbeam Spotlight 3.0 in July, 2008.
"We're in testing now and the application is performing beyond our expectations for this stage of development" said Puneet Gupta, Connectbeam's founder and CEO. "We've been working with over 40 Fortune 100 companies from around the world over the past several months and based on their recommendations, we began this revision immediately following our last release of last April".
User expectations drove a major push to improve the interface. With inputs from the human factors team of one of Connectbeam's largest customers, cognitive processes have been addressed. User testing and evaluation of results from other installed customer sites lave led to many aspects of navigation being made more interactive and intuitive. For example, balloon summaries contain quick snapshots of data attributes, tag suggestions are more accurate and the ability to see interrelationships between the various elements of your social metadata is all present in this release.
Support for RSS feeds and email notifications are important additions to Spotlight 3.0. "Our customers support incredibly robust systems of interaction for their employees on a global basis" notes Sanjeev Sisodiya, CTO at Connectbeam. "People give and get inputs from so many sources, RSS feeds and eMail notifications have become widely used mechanisms to keep up with what is going on, both internally and externally. We want Connectbeam Spotlight functionality to be everywhere, not just within the app itself… with the release of Spotlight 3.0, we don't have to interrupt the user's daily patterns of activity".
Among the 20 or so enhancements, the Connectbeam Spotlight API has been greatly enhanced enabling seamless integration with other enterprise applications such as SharePoint and others. Additionally, LDAP and Active Directory functionality has been significantly improved, adding support for automated user provisioning, user search, LDAP groups and authenticating against multiple Active Directory domains.
"With our 3.0 release, customers can use the new interface out-of-the-box or extract modularized components from Spotlight and insert them into various applications within their IT infrastructure. Our flexible architecture allows for endless adaptation and customization… this is what makes us so different" adds Gupta. "We take pride in being the most customer-responsive player in this space, focused on customer success and their return on investment. We make your existing infrastructure better so you don't have to replace what already exists, we extend the value of those applications. It's all about return on investment for our customers, we hear that loud and clear".
For more information on these and other enhancements found in the 3.0 release, please contact Connectbeam staff.
About Connectbeam
Founded in 2006, Connectbeam is the first and leading provider of an integrated set of enterprise social software applications delivered as a turnkey appliance for businesses. The premise of the Connectbeam application is that social networks inside companies create a climate of information sharing and discovery, and thrive when employees discover and connect with other employees in the context of searching for information and expertise. Connectbeam is the first company to successfully combine the features of social bookmarking and social networking to deliver an integrated information access and discovery application.
Connectbeam is headquartered in Mountain View, California, is privately held and venture backed. For more information, visit http://www.connectbeam.com.
Connectbeam's major awards include:
- “Top Five Enterprise 2.0 Companies to Watch in 2007” (InformationWeek)
- “Rising Star of 2007” (InfoWorld)
- “Cool Vendor for 2007” (Gartner)
- “Trend Setter Product of the Year 2007” (KMWorld)
Contact
Connectbeam, Inc.
605 Ellis Street
Mountain View, CA 94043
Main: (650) 980-5080
http://www.connectbeam.com
