Next For the Enterprise: Social Business Software Suites

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Mar 10, 2009

Jive Software Social Business Software Jive has been in the communities/social software space for over eight years now, starting back when the spirit of reaching out and collaborating hadn't started to take hold. Today they claim they have the next big techology solution for the enterprise and they have staked their communities software name on it. Say goodbye to Clearspace and hello to the Social Business Software Application Suite - Jive SBS 3.0.

The (Little) Big Company

Jive was founded in 2001 as an open source solutions vendor. 2008 was a groundbreaking year for them seeing a 70% growth year over year, the addition of 200 new customers, a new executive team and organization and some major funding from Sequioa Capital.

They call themselves the (Little) Big Company and they have developed a new strategy that is designed to extend their reach into the enterprise market. That new leadership strategy has three components:

Create the first purpose-built, enterprise-class, Social Business Software application suite - Jive SBS 3.0 (see corresponding release).
Build an enterprise go-to-market model for selling, servicing and supporting the most demanding Global 2000 companies and governments.
Create the Jive Industry - the largest collection of strategic technology, application, and services partners in the SBS market.

“The bad economy is driving executives to invest in new ways get business done,” said Dave Hersh, CEO of Jive. “Social Business Software is the first new application category to appear in over a decade that delivers a real breakthrough in cost, productivity, and competitive advantage. Jive is the first SBS company with a complete strategy for meeting the needs of Global 2000 companies and governments.”

Social Business Software

Jive went to 62 companies to find out what they were doing with social software and what their business objectives were. What did they find? They found that this type of software was being used primarily in four strategic areas: Employee engagement, Marketing/Sales, Innovation and Support.

What did they do with this new information? They redesigned their solution to help meet the needs of these four strategic areas.

Jive has said goodbye to the Clearspace and Clearspace Community brands and hello to the Social Business Software application suite v3.0. Now keep in mind they didn't get rid of the Clearspace functionality, just the name. Here's a look under the covers of SBS 3.0:

Jive SBS v3.0

In the diagram above, the Clearspace and Clearspace Community functionality has been incorporated into the foundation of SBS3.0. This is not new functionality. What is new are the Modules and Application Centers.

According to Jive, Social Business Software is the new "business architecture" and the new community is the "social capital marketplace" where intellectual capital plus relationships will lead to rapid results.

The Bridging of Internal and External Communities

Jive no longer believes in the separation of internal and external communities. Instead, SBS 3.0 takes a holistic view and bridges employee collaboration with partner and customer communities in a single application suite.

With their new Bridging technology you can easily drag and drop widgets into your view that contain information from various communities (marketplaces) outside of your company. This technology can also help you connect to CRM and content management systems.

Jive SBS 3.0 - Bridging

It is the bridging of the internal and external that is the key differentiator for the new Jive SBS 3.0. "This ‘bridge’ is unique to Jive SBS and presents the first opportunity for companies to create a singular conversation among its key constituents"