LABS @work Dell Streak 7 needs a lift from ‘Honeycomb’
OpenOffice.org suite may
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Chatter, Yammer offer
free collaboration
REVIEW: Salesforce.com’s Chatter Free and Yammer’s Basic editions
offer free in-the-cloud collaboration tools for organizations that want to
use social networking technology in a private, secure setting.
By Cameron Sturdevant
Microblogging in the enterprise attempts to harness the power of Twitter- and Facebook-like activity streams of social networking in a private, secure business
setting. Quick-hitting “what am I doing now” comments
mingle with files and followers in a fast-flowing river
of information.
The newly minted Chatter Free offering from Salesforce.com fits neatly with that company’s CRM and
development platform by making no-cost social collaboration available to anyone with a corporate e-mail
account. The Yammer client, which was updated in late
2010, integrates social tools with corporate functions,
such as organization charts and leaderboard reports of
popular topics and users.
I reviewed both enterprise social networking tools. Any
organization using Salesforce.com services already has
Chatter in the platform. There is a $15 per month per
user Chatter Plus client to fully collaborate within the
Salesforce.com universe.
Chatter Free is a nice extension of the social collabora-
tion for organizations that want the ability to collaborate
and follow people, documents and files, but don’t need
the full licensed sales or service features found in the
licensed editions of Salesforce.com. Chatter Free is also
available at Chatter.com for no-cost use by enterprises
that don’t use other Salesforce.com products.
I also looked at veteran social collaboration maker
Yammer, which was significantly enhanced in Version
2.0. The no-cost Yammer Basic can be used by orga-
nizations that want to try out collaboration. Yammer
Premium includes additional administrative, integration
In a Web browser, the Chatter activity stream also provides
“what to do next” tutorials and suggestions for using social
collaboration in the enterprise.
