Until recently, organisations who wanted to implement social software or “Enterprise 2.0″ faced the task of integrating various best of breed components. You might take a wiki, a blog, an enterprise RSS server, and glue them all together. This is still a viable solution in some cases, but in the last 12 months social software platforms have matured to the extent that they are now a viable offering.
The three leaders in this space are Jive Clearspace, Lotus Connections and Socialtext. Having used all three, I thought I’d take a look at what they offer, how you might decide which was right for you, and how to get started. This is not intended to be a thorough review of all the features. Some social software elements are starting to become a commodity, the ability to have a profile, follow people, tag content etc. are common to all, even though they might be implemented slightly differently. Instead the focus is on what separates them, and commercial and technical reasons to help you decide which to go for.
We have all three set up and installed at Headshift Towers, if anyone wants to come in and take a look / discuss in more detail please get in touch, we’d love to show you.
So, in no particular order…
Jive Clearspace
Of all the three, Jive is the most ’rounded’ of platforms. This is not to say it is the best! Often, a platform which has an obvious quick-win, key usage can generate better adoption than a general purpose system.
Jive’s legacy is forums software, and as such the ‘Discussion’ component is very strong. Whilst discussions can be about anything users are gently pushed toward using them to ask questions. Responses can be marked as correct or helpful which translate into points so that you can identify the most useful people as well as the most accurate content. This is tightly integrated into people’s profiles, and neither Connections or SocialText offer this ‘rating’ mechanism (although it is questionable whether all organisations would welcome that in their culture). Responses can be tagged, discussions are RSS enabled and can be converted into documents. This is much stronger than the Communities forums in Connections, and Socialtext doesn’t really have the concept. If discussion forums are an important part of your plans, then Jive definitely deserves a closer look.
Jive is also unique in having a specific offering for communities and social software outside the firewall. This is sold as a separate product, Clearspace Community, and has several high profile public sites. This is essentially the same technology, configured more for public access than private collaboration. If you have an external social software strategy as well as internal, there may be benefits in using the same platform for both.
Both Clearspace and Clearspace Community, like Socialtext, and priced on a subscription model, rather than perpetual license + annual maintenance, although there is a hosted option available. Technically speaking it is a J2EE application which runs on a variety of application servers. It is also highly extensible via its plug-in architecture and is far and away the most customisable of all the platforms.
Lotus Connections
A product from IBM can generate two extreme reactions. Some find comfort in an organisation the size of IBM, others have an instant dislike of IBM Software, especially Lotus software. What is clear, is that Lotus Connections is not your average IBM Software product. I would 100% guard against any ideological reaction against the fact that it comes from the Lotus brand. It has absolutely nothing to do with Notes/Domino from a technical perspective, and is a J2EE application which sits on IBM WebSphere. To reject it on the basis of the fact it has Lotus in the title, whatever your feeling about past Lotus offerings, would be a big mistake.
If Jive’s legacy and background is forums, then IBM’s is Profiles. IBM has effectively productised its internal directory and profiling platform (known as BluePages) making Connections exceptionally strong in terms of finding expertise. It has a very powerful social bookmarking feature (Dogear) which again is focused on helping you find people who have tagged pages with a certain topic. Scalability is proven given IBM has rolled the product out internally to its 300,000+ workforce. IBM has also been open about the future of the product, with Twitter-like status updates, wiki functionality (a big gap at the minute compared to SocialText and Jive) and a “river” of news similar to the Facebook news feed keeping you up to date with activity from across your network. This will not be released until the Summer at the earliest, and despite Connections being a light-weight product compared to the rest of IBM’s offerings, Jive and Socialtext work to a 2-4 week release cycle, compared to IBM.
A unique feature of Connections is the concept of Activities, think of it as social software task management. This integrates very well into Notes if you are a Notes user, but can still be useful for other platforms. IBM has done a lot of work integrating into non-IBM platforms such as Outlook and OS X with other products recently, and I would expect this to continue with Connections.
Whilst you can customise the look and feel by changing the CSS, the core functionality is not really customisable at all. However, you can develop and install different Widgets (including Google Gadgets) onto the homepage, and customise the functionality in that way.
What does differentiate Connections is that you can easily surface Connections content in other applications (including Sharepoint). Connections can become a social operating system, where the services (such as tagging) can be used by other applications. Connections is unmatched in terms of being able to develop completely separate third party applications (in whatever technology you like, as long as it can call a web service) using the services provided by Connections.
Update – I have since been made aware that the Socialtext API can perform a similar function in terms of creating third party applications.
A huge advantage of IBM’s commercial model is the fact that of the three it is the only one to offer a perpetual license (priced per user). After this, you pay a maintenance charge to give you free support and free upgrades (including major versions) which is usually ~17% of your license charge. Jive and Socialtext both work on a subscription basis. Whilst the pilot is fairly easy to install, you will definitely need help setting up a production environment (see my guide for help, but it’s worth getting someone in who knows what they’re doing).
Socialtext
Socialtext’s background is wiki technology, and if you’re looking for social software with a wiki at its heart then Socialtext could well be for you. They have wisely added social functionality around the wiki, rather than try to twist the wiki into a social platform and get it to do something it was not designed for. SocialCalc also looks highly interesting (a spreadsheet wiki) once it comes out of beta.
Of all the three platforms, Socialtext has the strongest status/Twitter/micro-blogging offering called Social Signals. You can choose to receive signals from just your contacts or from your entire organisation. Socialtext is unmatched in its ability to collaborate on documents due to its wiki background, but it is newest to the social software platform, and lacks some of the basics such as discussion forums.
A fascinating upcoming feature is an Adobe Air client for Socialtext, similar to Twhirl for Twitter. I’m quite excited by this, as I believe that my personal engagement Twitter has increased dramatically since I started using a desktop client. This could be a great way to increase engagement with Social Signals and the general feed of what is going on within your Socialtext platform.
Other strengths of Socialtext include its mobile access, the ability to email content into the system, and the capability to download content off-line to work when disconnected and then synchronise back up. It also has good connections into Sharepoint.
Socialtext has the quickest release cycle of all three, and as the software is managed by Socialtext even if it is hosted on a customer site this doesn’t create administrative problems. The downside is that this means that Socialtext functionality is not customisable. As it is an appliance you cannot get under the hood with the code, and Socialtext push code updates which make customisations difficult. Connections code cannot be changed either, only Jive provides a plug-in architecture. As with Connections though, you can add widgets to the dashboard, including OpenSocial, and Socialtext also includes a powerful REST API, which means you can create third party applications similar to Connections. Further, reported bugs / suggested improvements can be released exceptionally quickly and the organisation is highly open to those discussions.
Socialtext works on a subscription model, either a software as a service or intriguingly as an appliance, which can be hosted onsite or by Socialtext and all maintenance/upgrades are managed by Socialtext. It is not available as pure on-premise software.
Conclusion
All three are mature social software platforms worthy of consideration. In summary:
Jive – strongest discussion feature, the most depth in terms of customisation, the most “rounded” in terms of general use, has “Community” offering for public-facing projects. Subscription based pricing.
Connections - strongest profile features, excellent at finding expertise. One-off perpetual license model. Significant improvements coming in the Summer release. Can be used as a social operating system to power other applications
Socialtext – strongest wiki and status features, has offline capability and Sharepoint integration. Available as an appliance. Desktop client could have a dramatic impact on adoption
We’re more than happy to demonstrate these platforms and help you decide which is for you. We also have quick-start offerings to help you set up a pilot with any of these technologies.
I’d also be interested in hearing from people who are currently using these platforms, and whether they agree / disagree with this roundup.
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February 20th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Excellent summary Jon – very clear, easy to follow, and above all, fair.
From a Connections PoV, I’d just expand on your comments re: the strength of Profiles – this is a very customisable feature that can be used to pull in content from HR systems, databases and almost any form of application – this (I believe) goes way beyond the Profiles features in the other applications. The Blackberry integration is also a unique at this stage AFAIK.
Otherwise, I’d agree where you mention the relative merits of the other solutions – all three vendors are really driving innovation in this space and that is great for all users.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:33 pm
Yes – pre-populating Connections profiles is highly useful and a great way of removing a barrier to adoption. I believe that Jive either have this facility too, or if not it won’t be too far away.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:37 pm
Thanks Jon. This is a neat wrap-up of salient features for these three solutions. Very helpful. I’ve been waiting for a piece comparing all other social computing platforms to SharePoint. In my experience, SharePoint is the 800-lb gorilla in the large enterprise. I think Thomas Vander Wal is working on something along these lines.
February 20th, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Hi Jon,
We are about to release our new OzoneOS platform in Q1 and I think these guys will be in trouble and will start trying to take a look again. I hate to say it but Lotus should not be in this list at all. Jive, Social Text yes, their current platforms are good, but I think our is better 
this is good post, thank you for your view of the space. I would like to ask you to take a look at Blogtronix. We combined social tools like blogs, wikis and social networking way before Jive, Social Text or IBM for enterprise use. Sorry guys, you know that I am right. Not only that, we did it right
Cheers,
Vassil
founder & ceo, blogtronix
February 20th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
@Vassil Well obviously, if you say that’s true it must be
Do you have any independent reviews that suggest that your product is worthy of comparison with this triumvirate?
February 20th, 2009 at 4:11 pm
Jon — excellent piece. I’ll share that I found about 100 related products out there, and about 20 worth talking about at all. Within those, the 3 you mention here are at or near the top of the list. I agree that you can tell a lot about a tool based on where it came from. Some started as enterprise bookmarking tools, some started as wikis, others as discussion forums, etc. And their legacy shows in their product (for better or worse).
I’d add a thought about the relative importance of features. A lot depends on who in the company is doing the purchase. I think you hint to this in your introduction to IBM connections. For some buyers — having the name IBM, Microsoft, Oracle, or EMC preceding the community/collaboration platform is more important than the features. For other’s, being able to get a collaboration platform implemented with little or no involvement from IT (e.g. via software as a service) is important. For others, it is really about easy of use. So the degree to which a feature is important is many times a function of who is paying. Vendors should be aware that rather than just pitching features (we do X, we integrate with Y, etc.), they have to understand the buyer. Pretty basic stuff, but very relevant here.
The good news is that we have all seen real successes with good implementations of these (and comparable) platforms that transform the way organizations share information and improve their productivity.
Gil Yehuda
February 20th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Nice article Jon. Thank you for including Socialtext in this review. There are some big things coming from us in the next few weeks, and I look forward to providing everyone more details soon.
As shown above, choosing a vendor involves more than just comparing features x/y/z. Customers must include factors such as dealing with someone whom understands their business requirements, someone experienced in implementation and adoption, and someone that they both respect and trust. Based on the behaviors and reputations of certain vendors, it is pretty easy to see who customers want to work with. Socialtext is proud to be one of those vendors.
February 20th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Hi Jon,
very briefly: Jive has a twittering plugin, project functionality for managing and assigning tasks, an upcoming social bookmarking feature (even if not so complete as the one coming with Dogear) and many other possibilities to fine tune the structure to your communities (i.e groups, tag groups, hierarchical organization, activitity plugin, etc). I’m pretty sure there’s also a Sharepoint integration plugin.
What clients love most about Jive (in my experience) is anyway how everything comes together, the smoothness of the application, the speed with which new features are devoloped, the support from the community (i.e Clearsteps), the user experience and strong customization. It’s really an Enterprise 2.0 platform where 85-90% of what you need is already there. And it feels like a mature product.
I believe no solution at the moment has (and maybe should have) all the features we may think ok
February 20th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Thanks Emanuele – that’s a more articulate way of what I was trying to say about it being “rounded”!
February 20th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
Jon, what about Telligent instead? Should it be in that list in your opinion?
February 20th, 2009 at 5:22 pm
Potentially – we are just starting to get to know Telligent. As I understand it they have traditionally been external communities, rather than behind the firewall, although they do now have a product (Evolution). But I wanted to argue from a position of knowledge rather than regurgitating Gartner reports!
February 20th, 2009 at 5:40 pm
I’ve met there and it seems an interesting solution also for internal deployments. I think their Harvest Report Server is the best for analytics and their .net stack could be a meaningful plus for some customers.
Anyone with first hand experience?
February 20th, 2009 at 5:41 pm
Yes – they should definitely be considered if .Net is mandated.
February 20th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
If you are looking for a tightly integrated E2.0 system, build ground up for enterprise collaboration, unbiased with the legacies that you mention, you must check out cyn.in (http://cyn.in) Its built on top of the mature Plone platform, providing unmatched security and robustness.
cyn.in has all the features that you have evaluated, with a strong focus on ‘Activity Streams’ and ‘Contextual Discussions’, over an Adobe Air desktop client.
cyn.in is open source and available free. Commercial models include hosted (SaaS) and on-premise appliances, with no per user costs (CAL free)
We have been converting quite a few users of all of the three software you’ve looked at, so if you would like to test drive cyn.in, I could set up a trial site for you here: http://www.cynapse.com/cynin-trial
February 20th, 2009 at 6:39 pm
[...] Jive, Lotus Connections and Socialtext | Jon Mell – Web 2.0 ideas and strategy. Related Posts:Lotus revived? On Linux? To compete with Microsoft?The trouble with TwitterMy Kubuntu workstationRandom Articles found through NetworkWorldIs a Yahoo developer platform worth the time investment to learn?Tweet this! Share and Enjoy: [...]
February 20th, 2009 at 8:48 pm
@Stuart @Jon, I think the other key value add that Lotus Connections has that neither Clearspace or SocialText have is all the **free** plugins (like @Stuart mentioned for BlackBerry) but also for Microsoft Word, PowerPoint, Excel, Outlook (like you said, Jon), Windows Explorer, etc. I think the best social software tools are the ones that work from your context, and Jon, I think you’ll agree since your adoption of Twitter happened thanks to Twhirl!
February 20th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
Having used all three, and even done due diligence comparisons against all platforms, my own view is that Jive currently has the edge, although as stated above there is not much in it, and non functional requirements will probably have a bigger part to play in whether you chose one platform over another. (btw, the company I work for has opted for Connections, although there is a hard core element that continues to push for Clearspace
Blogtronix is mentioned in the comments, and I am surprised that this product has not actually gained more traction that it deserves. It is a solid product, got some interesting features and has been around for some time….maybe the .net nature is holding it back (?)
One thing not mentioned above is that Clearspace does give you access to the sourcecode which believe you me, after working with the other end of the spectrum (sorry Connections) can be really handy.
February 20th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
I’m loving this thread. What’s really missing in the sector these days is a “PCLabs” for e2.0. Perhaps Headshift can sandbox this. That would be awesome. Yesterday, I had a long chat with Jordan Frank from Traction Software. He pointed me to a fairly extensive review on wikis that was done by InfoWorld a few years ago. http://www.infoworld.com/article/07/01/05/02TCwiki_4.html
Analyst firms are cutting back, so they don’t have the resources to vet these platforms. Independents need billable work, so they can’t take the time to do this either. I’m not sure the tech media is really “getting” 2.0 yet. Customers are in desperate need of objective analysis. Jordan told me the InfoWorld reporter has since left the publication.
When Jeremiah did his Wave report on communities, he narrowed a list of 100 down to 9. Essentially, that means there are probably 91 companies that are having trouble getting some (perhaps deserved) air time.
There are great platforms out there. One of my new favorites is Knowledge Plaza http://www.knowledgeplaza.be/. And, if we’re throwing Blogtronix out there, you can’t not mention WordFrame (which I believe wasn’t even on Jeremiah’s list, but runs several successful collaboration/community sites).
It’s giving me some ideas for the e2.0 conference in Boston, in any event. Thanks for kicking off a great conversation.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:08 pm
There many way too mamy platforms to examine, everyone with a different twist, philosophy and set of capabilities that keep evolving quite quickly. Why not considering for example Connectbeam and Trampoline and confluence?
Maybe we can do this review collaboratively involving customers and consultants? Again features are only a small part of the story, but clients could also take part into ranking and commenting the level of usability, support, reactivity, etc the platform has.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
Also, lets not forget the recently webinar’d Sunspace built on the very robust Atlassian Confluence platform.
February 20th, 2009 at 11:33 pm
Emanuele, great idea! I know some folks have already started comparing solutions in the Clearstep business community (http://jivesoftware.com/clearstep). Maybe create a public group in there and invite folks in to start the comparison? Registration is free, forever.
February 21st, 2009 at 12:10 am
I’m surprised there is no mention of MindTouch Deki (www.mindtouch.com) anywhere in this review. MindTouch continues to be a leader and major player in the enterprise 2.0 collaboration space by providing integration with social tools, Web 2.0 apps, web services and Enterprise systems like SugarCRM, Salesforce, Microsoft Access, SQL Server, Microsoft Dynamics, ERP systems and much, much more.
While I think this review touches on some good points, connecting legacy and enterprise systems is what’s missing in SocialText’s technology/capabilities – things that are truly important to the enterprise.
February 23rd, 2009 at 8:22 am
can someone explain what ‘you pay a maintenance charge for free support and free upgrades’ is supposed to mean?
February 23rd, 2009 at 11:22 am
Hi Dick – IBM software is a perpetual license. Once you pay the initial charge, you’re allowed to use it forever. However, you are not entitled to raise bugs, or upgrades unless you pay an annual maintenance charge, usually about 17% of your initial purchase costs.
February 26th, 2009 at 1:06 pm
[...] Jive, Lotus Connections and Socialtext | Jon Mell – Web 2.0 ideas and strategy (tags: socialsoftware) [...]
March 3rd, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Hi Jon,
I continued to think about the topic. In my opinion, one important aspect to consider in Europe is the size of the customer.
Companies like Telligent and Jive clearly target big to huge fishes but SMBs are 99.9% of the market in Italy. Here an aggressive pricing, a great user experience, a good set of features and an accurate support are really the key. I’m impressed by the work WordFrame is doing along these dimensions.
March 4th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
[...] Jive, Lotus Connections and Socialtext [...]
March 12th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
[...] my recent posts on Jive, Socialtext and Connections, some people have been asking me where I see Sharepoint fitting in. I was planning a long post on [...]
April 9th, 2009 at 3:47 am
I thought the write-up was very well done; however, in the conclusion section I would add some information. I’ve been working with the Jive Clearspace/SBS platform for over a year now, and while I agree that it is highly customizable; I would also ADD the fact that it’s integration/customization capabilities through both Core and Web Service APIs (both SOAP & REST) are definitely worth the mention.
Based on a recent comparison of WebService functionality between Jive/Connections, it was my opinion that the external integration (REST Services) capabilities leaned in favor of Jive, based on our use-cases, based on criteria for dynamic content selection/filtration. I will reiterate the position that this is not your typical Lotus product, and that people really should set all predispositions aside when looking at the tool. It has a strong offering. My only point of contention was that the Web Service offerings was quite significant on the Jive side of the house, and wanted to make sure that was mentioned.
On a side note, the technology combinations of Enterprise Caching (Coherence), Spring (IOC), and Struts 2 in Jive…are quite the powerful combination, and speaking as a veteran IT Systems integrator, it’s hard not to fall in love with the elegance in which these technologies work together when developing solutions.
I haven’t read all the comments yet, as it is late, but I am definitely looking forward to the coming months as these vendors duke it out for #1…cheers!
April 9th, 2009 at 7:02 am
Thanks for the additional info Ryan – I am going away on vacation for a while (getting married!) so may not be able to approve comments in a timely fashion – please bear with me. However, if you have commented before, you should be auto-approved!
April 29th, 2009 at 3:39 am
[...] lacks some features provided some other top of mind E2.0 tools (and I think back to a great post here, where Jon Mell discusses Jive, Lotus Connections, and SocialText – and, for what it’s worth, [...]
June 11th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
[...] It won’t be enough to hire knowledge workers to survive and thrive in this recession. Organisations will have to change their business practices to take advantage of their abilities, and provide them with the tools to be effective. Word, Outlook and even Sharepoint won’t cut it. They will need custom built social platforms, or products such as Confluence, Jive, Socialtext and Lotus Connections. [...]
July 21st, 2009 at 11:52 am
[...] the three big social networking platforms, Socialtext is the only one with an out of the box desktop client. Whilst Connections and Jive [...]
August 7th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I have worked with Jive’s Clearspace and now SBS product for over a year now. What is does, it does very well. Their framework and tool set to customize the GUI are flexible and straight-forward with a couple of caveats. (1) Not everything in Jive’s UI is customizable. (2) Some customizations require little programming effort. (3) Some customizations will require an extensive programming effort and a strong knowledge of Struts, FreeMarker, and Maven.
On the otherhand, with some of the available plugins, if all you want to do is add some widgets to the UI, then you have the opportunity to include almost anything developed in ajax, flash, or html from another web property.
I could say more, but the point I really want to make is this…If you like what Jive does, and how it’s structured, you can change it’s style and add new functions within it’s structure (and have a great result), but you should be satisfied that it will be the container for your application. If you want to add community services to an existing application/ web property, you should look at other alternatives.
January 25th, 2010 at 11:20 am
[...] of a niche tool (such as a blog or wiki application) with a more complete social platform (such as Jive, Connections or SharePoint). Increasingly, we are seeing organisations who have been using [...]