Zoho and VMWare … Zoho partnered with VMWare, for easier behind the firewall deployment of Zoho’s software. “You probably know Zoho as a SaaS company with enterprise collaboration and productivity tools. What you might not know is that they also offer on-premise deployments for companies with more than 10,000 employees. While this has been an important option for large enterprises not ready for the cloud, its limitation has always been the hardware requirements that went along with it. Starting today, that limitation disappears via partnership with VMware to get Zoho’s apps running on the vSphere “private cloud” behind the firewall.” More

On SharePoint “Killers” … Shawn offers a warning about vendors claiming they offer a “SharePoint killer”. “… in many cases, these “killers” are only hopefuls with virtually no evidence they could harm a fly. I don’t want to suggest that there aren’t viable competitors to SharePoint. Far from it. There are a number of very good tools that have similar functionality. However, as a consumer you need to do your homework and ensure that you’re choosing the tool for the right reason: it meets your business requirements. This is true whether it’s SharePoint or Alfresco (which has also been positioned as a “SharePoint killer”).” More

TokBox and EtherPad … Tokbox integrated EtherPad into its video-chat service, for real-time document collaboration. “Essentially, you start a call on TokBox and invite up to 20 friends or coworkers to the call. You then put in your URL for EtherPad in an existing URL pad. After speaking with TokBox CEO Ian Small, TokBox wants to focus more on collaboration, and they have started a great relationship with EtherPad. Small also mentioned that EtherPad will be integrating TokBox into their service in the next couple of weeks. According to Small, EtherPad will be able to collaborate on documents with the addition of voice and video chatting powered by TokBox.” More

Questions to Ask … James outlines a series of questions to ask business units wanting collaboration tools. “To kick-start this process, this briefing outlines a number of questions the central team could ask. Use these as a starting point when approached by business units, and adapt them to fit the specific situation. These questions must not be seen as obstructive, or as a hurdle designed to minimise the spread of collaboration tools. Instead, they should be used as a basis for constructive dialogue, with both sides learning valuable information. Information gained from these types of questions is invaluable for the central team, helping them design or adapt collaboration solutions to fit the organisation’s changing needs.” More

Other Items
– Apple Snow Leopard is here; faster and safer. Reviews: pcworld.com, nytimes.com
– Warning about Shadow IT.