NewsGator Unveils iPhone and iPad Clients for Microsoft SharePoint

DENVER, Feb. 18 /PRNewswire/ -- NewsGator, the company making SharePoint social, today released two new important Enterprise 2.0 tools: SharePoint's first native social iPhone client and social computing's most sophisticated microblogging suite.

The iPhone client, and a companion client for the soon-to-be-released iPad, provide on-the-road users with direct access to their enterprise social computing environments without the need for a browser, an extra layer of software that can complicate a work session. As a mobile client for NewsGator Social Sites, the social computing environment most deeply integrated into the SharePoint collaboration platform, the iPhone client accesses all the relevant updates from the user's colleagues and communities.

For the first time, mobile users can use an iPhone to:

• send status updates, videos and photos to Social Sites;
• comment on and "like" valuable updates;
• see notifications when others comment on or like your updates;
• participate in community discussions;
• target a question to a person or group;
• see the updates that you're radiating to others;
• view updates from a specific colleague or community;
• look up contact info for colleagues;
• and more.

NewsGator will release the native iPad client for Social Sites with all of these capabilities when the new tablet device hits the market this spring.

A more powerful brand of microblogging

Microblogging is more than just tweeting ideas into the ether in hopes that someone benefits. That's why NewsGator has fully integrated microblogging into its comprehensive social computing environment. Integrating personal status updates with automated streaming of enterprise activities addresses the strong preference for microblogging in context: By 2012, more than 50 percent of enterprises will use activity streams that include microblogging, but stand-alone enterprise microblogging will have less than 5 percent penetration, according to the Gartner research firm.(1)

Unlike other products, Social Sites' new microblogging suite includes all of the following:

• a "global conversation" page to see all status updates in the enterprise as they occur;
• ability to target messages to a person or community;
• community-specific update streams and conversation modules;
• e-mail status updates and notifications;
• hashtag support, enabling impromptu discussions through use of the "#" character;
• "like" buttons to easily indicate positive feedback;
• notification emails for likes and comments;
• ability to add a comment by replying to a notification email;
• standard and custom filtering of status updates and activities;
• photo and video attachments that can be viewed inline; and
• new APIs for consuming and publishing activity information.

"It's not enough just to have mobile access or microblogging – what really matters is how such tools integrate with your existing work environment and processes," said Brian Kellner, vice president of products for NewsGator. "We've learned the intricacies of productive social computing through experience with more than two million paid enterprise users and have brought that experience to bear in these new features of Social Sites that integrate seamlessly with employees' existing workflow and communication methods."

The new iPhone and microblogging features are part of Social Sites 3.1, available now.

About NewsGator Technologies, Inc.

NewsGator Technologies helps enterprises leverage social computing to deliver real business value. The company's enterprise social networking products are used by the world's most recognized brands, including Novartis, Biogen Idec, Edelman, The United States Army, and The United States Air Force. NewsGator Social Sites and Tomoye Ecco give organizations better ways to innovate, collaborate, manage knowledge, develop new employees and improve productivity. For more information, visit www.newsgator.com.

(1) http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1293114

SOURCE NewsGator