NewsGator expands into Goverment 2.0 with Tomoye purchase

NewsGator took a huge leap last week into Government 2.0 when it agreed to purchase Tomoye, whose biggest clients include the US Army and Defense Acquisition University. What's more, as a SharePoint partner Tomoye is a perfect fit for NewsGator, which has strong ties to Redmond.

According to a blog post by CEO JB Holsten, the purchase gives NewsGator soup to nuts coverage of .net and SharePoint. He writes:

"[The purchase gives us] complete coverage for .Net and SharePoint for enterprise collaboration and social computing. Tomoye’s Ecco 3.0 product offered alongside NewsGator Social Sitescovers every conceivable customer scenario; from a well-integrated SharePoint WSS solution to a deeply customized MOSS 2007 deployment to a quickly deployed standalone platform; and from Intranet collaboration and expertise discovery to extranet customer and partner interactions to Internet communities for customers."

He adds, they are also working on SharePoint 2010 solutions. Any company that's already a Microsoft shop, and is interested in an Enterprise 2.0/Government 2.0 solution, has to be looking long and hard at this combination. NewsGator has every right to be excited about this as it makes them a powerhouse in the Microsoft world. I would even go so far as to speculate (and it is pure speculation on my part) that Microsoft would consider purchasing NewsGator and making it its Enterprise 2.0/Government 2.0 unit within SharePoint or their Enterprise computing division.

Whether that happens or not, only time will tell, but for now, as purchases go, this is as good a match as you are likely to find. It's a great move by NewsGator to expand its market share and continue to grow its business. As someone who has been watching this company for many years when it was just about RSS in the enterprise, this is a big step for them and one that should pay significant dividends moving forward.

For more information:
- see JB Holsten's blog post
- see NewsGator's press release

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