MeGlobe for IM with Translation … MeGlobe released its name-sake service for real-time language translation in IM. “In an era where geographical distances have long been eliminated from communication, language barriers still pose many challenges. MeGlobe addresses these challenges by allowing people from all over the world to communicate in real-time, even if they don’t speak the same language. Users can also make their own contribution towards eliminating language barriers by editing the translations performed by the system. These edits are then stored and used to to improve translation accuracy and quality.” Available immediately. More

Apptix Hosted OCS … Apptix released a hosted edition of Microsoft Office Communications Server 2007, for secure IM and online meetings. “Apptix is one of the first providers to offer integrated Microsoft Office Live Meeting Web conferencing and secure IM capability through an affordable monthly subscription, starting at just $14.95—rather than on a per meeting basis—enabling businesses to hold as many online meetings as necessary without concern for cost. Desktop sharing as well as video and audio are integrated directly through Internet-connected PCs, eliminating the need for costly third-party video solutions and reducing conference phone charges.” Available immediately. More

FAST Search for SharePoint … Microsoft announced FAST Search for SharePoint, a new high-end search server offering for SharePoint. Available with SharePoint 14. More

Funambol MobileWe 8 … Funambol announced version 8 of MobileWe, its push email and mobile sync server. “Funambol v8 features a new AJAX web portal that makes it easy to sync PIM data, email and multimedia content between billions of mobile phones, the Internet cloud and desktops. Funambol MobileWe enables device manufacturers, mobile operators, portals, service providers and ISVS to rapidly offer a next-gen push email and mobile sync solution.” More

DocVerse Review … Simon reviews the DocVerse document collaboration service, and likes what he sees. “I took the beta version of DocVerse for a spin today, and first impressions are good. DocVerse promises easy document sharing and collaboration and it does just that: you get one-click syncing of documents from with Office and the ability to collaborate on documents with people who don’t have Office installed. Notably, it’s currently limited to PowerPoint 2007 users; DocVerse plans to roll out support for Word, Excel and Office 2003 later this spring …. Although they can’t edit the document directly, people viewing the presentation in a browser can add comments that are then synced back to the file on my computer. This kind of simple cross-platform sharing and collaboration will make DocVerse really useful. I can’t wait for it to roll out support for the rest of the Office suite, for while I love Google Apps, I still need to use Office (particularly Word) from time to time.” More (and Om Malik has just looked at it too).

On SharePoint 14 … Larry is at the FASTforward 2009 Conference, and offers some insights into what might be in the next edition of SharePoint. Eg, browser-based document thumbnails and previews, business data catalog improvements, and tagging, as well as expertise information. More