Team Collaboration

• Centric Team Elements … Centric CRM released a preview version of Centric Team Elements, a suite of Enterprise 2.0 applications for its customer relationship management offering. “Centric Team Elements is the first complete, open source, Java-based Enterprise 2.0 product. It ties together discussions, wikis, blogs, RSS feeds, issue tracking and trouble-ticketing, project management, document management, and federated search in a single, unified application running on a relational database. Centric Team Elements is the only team collaboration product to offer all of these capabilities within a single application.” Available immediately as 0.9; 1.0 is due in 3Q2007. MarketwireCanada
• MessageWare CalendarShare 3.0 … MessageWare released Version 3.0 of CalendarShare, an add-on for Outlook Web Access that supports calendar delegation. “The only calendar enhancement software for Outlook Web Access, CalendarShare 3.0 builds Outlook-like calendaring functionality into OWA, the world’s most widely used corporate web mail solution. Using CalendarShare 3.0, users can now set delegate access to calendars from within Outlook Web Access–acting as a delegate, requesting and accepting meetings and scheduling appointments for someone else. One can also assign permissions for others to view their entire calendar. In addition, the solution retains current, popular features, including the ability to view up to five calendars side-by-side, viewing multiple calendars in day, week and month formats, tracking meeting attendee requests and convenient resource booking.” Available immediately. MessageWare
• PeopleCube WebEvent … PeopleCube released an updated version of WebEvent, its online event scheduling and calendaring offering. New features: enhanced search capabilities, improved email reminder functionality, and new UNIX platform options. Available immediately. PeopleCube
• Microsoft Live Futures … Microsoft announced plans to release an integrated suite of communication tools under the Windows Live moniker, combining a Windows desktop client and a series of online services. “The new suite of applications will include Windows Live Messenger for instant messaging; the currently beta Windows Live Mail for unified e-mail that could include Hotmail and any other standard e-mail service, Windows Live Writer for blog authoring and Windows Live Photo Gallery. Further down the road, Microsoft hopes to add Windows Live OneCare, the company’s consumer security service. There will also be a mobile version of the suite.” More details forthcoming in 3Q2007. InformationWeek
• Calgoo Apps 1.0 … Calgoo came out of beta with its first full-edition, supported by a $25 fee per user per year. “Of course this program is extremely unique in that it can synchronize your Outlook calendar with Google Calendar in both directions. You can hop online to the Google Calendar if you’re on the road and need to add an appointment. Then when you return to the office Calgoo will automatically update your Outlook calendar so that it is perfectly in sync.” New features: revised user interface, improved calendar support, synchronization of Outlook contacts, a new database engine, and more. Available immediately. CybernetNews
• Sunbird and Lightning 0.5 … Mozilla released Version 0.5 of Lightning and Sunbird, two calendar clients. Sunbird is standalone and separate from email; Lightning is integrated with Mozilla Thunderbird. Key features: support for multiple calendars, some support for Google Calendar, improved printing functionality, and meeting invitation sending by email with Lightning. Available immediately. CybernetNews
• Google Docs & Spreadsheets Facelift … Google updated the look-and-feel of its Docs & Spreadsheets online offering. Bruce Elgort
• Three Barriers to Adoption … Todd lays out three barriers to adoption of collaboration tools: (1) lack of awareness of what’s available, (2) lack of education on how to use it effectively, and (3) unwillingness to use whatever is available. He concludes with, “Are their other barriers? Yes, but solve this group and the rest won’t matter.” Collaborage
• Amicus MessageKeep … Amicus released MessageKeep, a hosted email archiving add-on for Zimbra email users. “MessageKeep seamlessly and efficiently clones a copy of each message into your archive, where it is stored safe from crashed hard drives and errant deletion. Enhanced with custom retention settings and delegated personal web access to user-specified archive audit sets, MessageKeep delivers enterprise-strength capabilities for compliance with archive and discovery regulations such as the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure (FRCP) and corporate policy best-practices.” Available immediately. PR Leap

Mobility

• Laplink Everywhere for iPhone … Laplink announced that Version 5 of Laplink Everywhere, its remote access software for accessing PCs from mobile devices, will support the Apple iPhone in 3Q2007. “Laplink Everywhere 5 will be squarely aimed at the mobile device market, with a free version of Laplink Everywhere that allows a mobile user to quickly and easily execute a remote search of their desktop PC and then forward files or email resulting from that search – all with very little data actually transferred to or from the mobile device.” Laplink
• Visto Mobile for iPhone … Visto announced Visto Mobile for iPhone, thus providing access to corporate email servers from the just-about-released Apple iPhone. “Through Visto, iPhone users will be able to experience secure mobile access to current and legacy versions of both Microsoft Exchange and IBM Lotus Domino corporate messaging platforms. Visto will enable access that is easy to implement and administer and will alleviate IT concerns regarding security and reliability. Available 3Q2007. Visto

Productivity

• 20 Time and Energy Drains … Leo catalogues 20 time and energy drains to avoid. Freelance Switch