The Connectbeam Social Computing Blog

Mixing Hardware and Social Software

Daniela Barbosa recently did an interesting post, A VC Calls for Startup Ideas and I Ponder What I am Doing at Dow Jones, on the list of Startup Ideas We'd Like to Fund by VC Paul Graham. She discussed a number of his desired concepts as they relate to her work at Dow Jones. I highly recommend the post.

I was also drawn to look at Paul Graham’s complete list and from this interesting desired idea - Hardware/software hybrids. Paul writes “Most hackers find hardware projects alarming…Hardware is already mostly software. What I mean by a hardware/software hybrid is one in which software plays a very visible role. If you work on an idea of this type you'll tend to have the field to yourself, because most hackers are afraid of hardware, and most hardware companies can't write good software. (One reason your iPod isn't made by Sony is that Sony can't write iTunes.).”

We put our social software into a piece of hardware for many reasons but security is certainly one of them. In addition, with a rapidly changing technology, we did not want clients to have to deal with implementation concerns and face any issues with upgrades. We literally adopted a plug and play approach through a hardware/software hybrid to get things not only inside the firewall but also inside the box, the one we provide. It also enables one click back up and restores, one click upgrades, and automatic authentication. We find that many of our large customers appreciate the added security. It is nice to get the added validation of the concept through Paul Graham’s list.

Connectbeam launches VMWare Virtual Appliance

We are very pleased to launch today - Connectbeam Virtual Appliance.

Connectbeam Virtual Appliance gives users and companies the option to download, directly from our website, full-featured Social Bookmarking and Social Networking application, and immediately get started.

The entire application can literally be up and running inside your company in a matter of minutes.

If you have a VMPlayer installed, simply go to our download page to download Connectbeam application.

If you dont have the VMPlayer installed, you can download it for free here.

For many companies Virtual Appliance will continue to suffice the need.
For those who wish to get started quickly, can now start their evaluation and deployment with the Virtual Appliance. As the usage grows, Connectbeam application provides a seamless migration path from the Virtual Appliance to our high-end Physical Appliance using the backup and restore feature under the administration console.

Connectbeam releases 'one-click' application upgrade feature

We have always maintained that the benefits of Enterprise 2.0 applications should go beyond the collaboration and productivity increases for businesses, but should also translate into reduced Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) for these applications (particularly w.r.t. installation, set up, and maintenance).

To that end, with Release 2.0 of our product we have launched a breakthrough feature - Single Click Upgrade.

Most of today's behind the firewall applications require a multi-part, multi-step upgrade process that consume tremendous amount of time and resources.

With Connectbeam this process is reduced to a single click.

The screen shot below is from the Administration section of Connectbeam application. All it takes to upgrade to the next release (or patch) is a simple single click of the Upgrade button.

Connectbeam announces Release 2.0 and Starter Appliance trial offer for $1,995

Today, we are announcing the general availability of our product release version 2.0.

In partnership and feedback from several customers, we are proud to bring to you innovative and break-through product features and enhancements, that are easy to use, and delivered to the user at their place and point of search. This will further empower team collaboration, people and information discovery - leading to unparalleled worker productivity inside enterprises.

The product tour link from our website will give you a high level overview of the new product and features.

Customers challenged us to deliver an application solution around information access and discovery, and team collaboration that did the following:

Where ever the user turns to search (inside the company or outside), deliver to user search results and information from:

1. Their own collection
2. What others in their social network have contributed
3. What is inside the company (Intranet)
4. What they find outside the company (Internet)

We deliver this experience to the user by presenting their social graph and view of their collective intelligence right at their point of search by integrating Connectbeam with their search experience through their web browser. Connectbeam's patented design and architecture delivers this in a completely secure and bullet proof manner, since Connectbeam's Collective Search Toolbar is installed and driven from the Connectbeam Appliance which sits behind company firewall and in control of IT administrator.

Simply put, rather than asking user to turn to yet another social software site to find information to get their work done, we deliver the information to where ever the user turns to in their universe of search.

To see a full list of Connectbeam features, please click here.

To see different Appliance models, and feature comparison, please click here.

We are also announcing a limited time, trial offer for 500 users for 120 days for $1,995. This includes the Starter Appliance hardware and full featured Connectbeam application.

Customers can place the order online, directly from our website.

At the end of the trial period, customers can chose to renew and extend the license, or not renew. In either event, the Appliance is for customers to keep - they do not have to return it if they don't renew the license.
We understand, you will inevitably put proprietary and sensitive data on the Appliance, thus specifically for this reason to not jeopardize your data, we understand that the Appliance be not removed from your location.

Enterprises and social networks...

David Terrar over at blognation UK wrote about the issues around social networking in the Enterprise, particularly many companies rushing to block access to mostly consumer facing social networking sites.

I feel the winning combination is some compromise between the features of the open, free for all consumer facing networks like LinkedIn and Facebook, but customized to address the unique attributes of a business.

We cannot discount the fact that companies need to, and have to, guard and protect their intellectual property (IP). And IP takes different shapes and forms across different businesses. I think this fact is often overlooked when news crosses the wire about some company blocking access to a consumer facing social site.

We discovered during early days of Connectbeam that campanies are not necessarily averse to social software (most understand it and like it), but not at the expense or risk of exposing their IP. We are seeing tremendous uptake on our Appliance product offering, which delivers social bookmarking and social networking software in a box, deployed behind company firewall, to build and foster social networks and communites inside businesses.

Yes, while this might start off by limiting the scope of social networking to within the walls of the campny, we feel this is nonetheless, a very good first step.

Connectbeam explained...making it easy for enterprise adoption

This is one of the best descriptions of our product that we have seen on the blogsphere.

Stacey Higginbotham of the Tech Confidential Blog at The Deal.com articulates it beautifully, as follows:

One of the larger problems associated with bringing social-networking and Web 2.0 products to corporate users is that corporate users may not want to deal with learning yet another computer program. It’s frustrating enough for most average computer users when their favorite Web sites or Windows applications change, so when faced with an entirely new way to think about information and the way to work, it’s almost too much.

Connectbeam Inc. is hoping to gently lead enterprise users into Web 2.0 functionality through its bookmarking and networking software. The company, which recently raised a $3.5 million Series A round from Gabriel Venture Partners and Startup Capital Partners, has signed up Honeywell International Inc. and others to place a Connectbeam appliance into whatever existing Intranet search service the company uses. That way when users search a corporate Intranet, they will also find recent bookmarks and project notes from colleagues anywhere in the company, and anywhere in the world.

Two good things about Connectbeam are that it doesn’t ask for new behaviors from all users to become useful, and the software is sold as an appliance. Selling software as an appliance allows for the corporation to control the data inside the corporate firewall, but without having to load, customize and manage packages software. Negatives might be the competition. BEA is launching its own bookmarking and tagging software, and plenty of larger players like IBM Corp. are muscling their way into all aspects of Web 2.0.

...and i would add that competition is a good thing. This is an emerging market, making it fun for all.

CIO Insight - The Appliance Model

CIO Insight magazine has a good article by John Parkinson on putting I.T. Appliances to work.

John lists areas such as storage, search, security, email management, data analytics, and system management - where Appliances are already in place inside corporate data centers.

The availability of industry-standard components and Linux have radically altered the economics of the appliance approach. Appliances benefit from the established set of monitoring and management standards that let them behave as good citizens in the network in a way that general-purpose computing platforms and software can't.

For enterprises, who must have their data behind the firewall, Appliance is a good fit.

We welcome you to contact us to see a demo of our Social Bookmarking and Social Networking Application packaged as an Appliance, and to discuss a fit for your organization.