Jive introduces Social Business Software 4.0

Jive is having a big week holding its first Jive World Conference in San Francisco and announcing its new version of its Social Business Software, version 4.0 (which some would call an Enterprise 2.0 platform). The new tool boasts a host of new functionality including a bridging feature to get information from customer forums to key people in a company, a mobile version and integration with Microsoft Office. In addition, CEO Dave Hersh said, the company achieved 100 percent year over year revenue growth, just closed Series B funding and expect to close the year profitable with a positive cash flow.

The Microsoft Office integration lets users preview Microsoft documents inside the Jive platform, while at the same time interacting with Jive inside Office applications, eliminating the need to open Jive to use it. Adam Mertz, a product manager at Jive says this type of integration is something that customers have been pushing for. "In past you could download it [from inside Jive] and look at it in Office. Now, as you're looking for content, you see it in Jive without having to download it to Office." Users can also add comments in Jive, then see comments in Office, although there is no live editing inside Jive yet.

Another big issue for customers says, CEO Hersh was having access to the Jive platform from smart phones while away from the office, and the new release has a new version available in the iPhone App Store along with a Blackberry version of Jive. The iPhone version gives users complete access to their social networking information including the ability to be able to publish from the phone and access and interact with information and individuals on the Jive network.

The bridging piece gives Jive users the ability to take some information they find on a community network and share it with users for learning purposes, to find the right individual to answer a customer concern, or to let the team what they are doing well and not so well. It's just a snap shot right now, so it doesn't show when the conversation changes, but Mertz says this is part of the future plans.

For now, Jive has added a rich set of new functionality to its platform, and with funding, profits, and their first user conference (sold out, no less), as Hersh says, "It's been a hell of a year for us." It's hard to argue with that.

For more information:
- see the Jive press release

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