Team Collaboration Report

• CalConnect on Federated Free/Busy … CalConnect’s Roundtable meeting was hosted by Apple in Cupertino last week; federated free/busy was one of the topics discussed. The idea of free-busy aggregation is that it solves the difficult problem of seeing when people have free time in common, even if they’re on disparate calendaring systems. The requirements of the challenge were to use open standards, could be implemented today, and cross timezones and geographic and network boundaries. Participating products include RPI’s Bedework, Oracle Calendar, TimeBridge, Exchange, OSAF, Lotus Domino, Google Calendar and Apple iCal Server. Oren Sreebny’s Weblog
• “Workplace” Going … IBM has decided to drop the name “Workplace” from its branding efforts going forward, although it may remain an overarching name when discussing strategy. CRN
• “Adoption” Ideas … Bob examines a recent New York Time Magazine article on hand-washing “adoption” within a hospital, and highlights some of the key adoption principles: (1) you have to watch what people are doing, don’t just accept their self-reported data; (2) hand out small rewards to people found doing the right thing; (3) make visually vivid statements about the benefits of hand-washing. There’s some good lessons in there for collaborative technology adoption … Bob Sutton
• Embrace Persistent Group-based Messaging … Nick Fera, CEO of Parlano, comments on the success that he and his team are having in helping customers overcome some of the intractable problems in email through persistent group-based messaging. “What we are seeing time and time again in the companies we work with to deploy persistent group chat solutions, is a switch from email based conversation threads, to synchronous and asynchronous conversations over persistent group chat. By using these persistent chat rooms our customers are able to organize themselves around important topics, people and processes, and consume that real time flow of information in a spam-less environment, and prioritize the information that is most important to them.” He doesn’t believe, however, that email (the email client?) will disappear all together. Nick Fera’s Blog
• Akonix 5.3 … Akonix released Version 5.3 of L7 Enterprise, its instant messaging management server. Offers ethical boundary support (to enforce Chinese walls, for example) and persistent chat rooms, among others. Available immediately. Akonix
• Groove Case Study … Tampa-based auditing firm SAS 70 Solutions has a staff of 26, and uses Groove Virtual Office 3.x to enable secure collaboration amongst staff and with clients. CPA Technology Advisor
• ScheduleWorld … ScheduleWorld is a browser-based service that synchronizes with multiple applications and devices to give users access to their calendars, contacts and tasks when out-and-about. It uses SyncML. Java and Java Micro Edition clients are also available. ScheduleWorld enables users to turn their task list into an RSS feed. ScheduleWorld, with graphics and description at //engtech
• Collaboration Technology in the Construction Industry … Rebecca writes about why the construction industry has been slow to embrace collaboration technology, given the clear benefits available from (a) consistent design instructions, and (b) easier revision control. Contract Journal

Mobility Report

• RIM Hits 6.2 Million Subscribers … RIM announced its financial results for the quarter ended September 2, and announced growth in the total BlackBerry subscriber count to 6.2 million. RIM
• Problems with Skype on Mobile Phones … Skype’s transition of its software to support regular mobile phones isn’t going as fast or smoothly as anticipated. BusinessWeek
• “BlackBerry is Best for Hard Core Email Addicts” … Om comments on the continued growth of Research In Motion, and says that in comparison to newer devices from Nokia et al, the BlackBerry is still the best email device available. GigaOM
• Visto Gets More Money and Big Name … Visto, a mobile email player, announced $51 million of new funding from existing and new investors, with the money to be used for growing its subscriber base across the world (esp. with Vodafone and Softbank). Barry Schuler, former Chairman and CEO of America Online, has joined Visto’s Board of Directors due to his involvement with one of the new investors, DFJ Growth Fund.
• Funambol Mobile 3 … Funambol released Version 3.0 of its open source push-based wireless email server for carriers and enterprises. “Funambol v3 is available in Carrier, Community (open source) and Network (for enterprises) Editions. All editions provide over-the-air synchronization of contacts, calendars, to-do lists and other Personal
  Information Management (PIM) data. They also provide push email capabilities for sending, receiving and forwarding email, and allow users to open attachments, check email online and offline, and accept or decline meeting events. Each edition also delivers specific benefits for specific users.” Available immediately for Windows and Linux. prnewswire.com