Novell Ships Cloud-Based Social Collaboration Platform

WALTHAM, Mass., April 5, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Novell today announced the general availability of Novell Vibe™ Cloud, the first secure, real-time, web-based social collaboration platform for the enterprise. Novell Vibe Cloud is offered as an online service and comes in two editions – basic, with all the functionality needed to demonstrate proof-of-value, and enterprise, which offers additional security features, management controls and premium support. Novell also announced the Novell Vibe Enterprise Social Getworking Program to help enterprises quickly deploy and gain value with the enterprise edition of Novell Vibe Cloud. Customers can signup at www.novell.com/socialgetworkingprogram for a chance to receive everything from on-site consulting and support to free enterprise subscriptions.

"Industry trends indicate that people want social tools in the workplace, but social tools alone won't make business users more productive," said Erin Traudt, Research Director, Enterprise Collaboration and Social Solutions at IDC. "New social collaboration offerings, like Novell Vibe, help put the social functionality people want in the context of accomplishing their daily work, while adding the security and compliance control that enterprises need. It's this combination that helps people get work done not only faster, but smarter."

Novell Vibe Cloud is web-based and easy to use like consumer social networking tools, but built for the enterprise. It combines real-time co-authoring, social messaging, and file sharing with the security IT needs. It makes it easy for people to work together across organizations while maintaining enterprise security policies. All it takes to bring a colleague, partner or customer into Novell Vibe Cloud is their email address, and Vibe integrates with any email client through standard protocols.  Taking collaboration beyond single-purpose social and real-time solutions, Vibe Cloud helps people to work together across organizations to reach new levels of efficiency in the global workplace.

The free basic version, announced in beta in November, has already had thousands of users set up accounts at https://vibe.novell.com. Using Vibe, people can stay in the loop, tap into good ideas, connect better with customers and partners, get feedback and finish joint work faster.  Beta users have found that Vibe helps them work together in many ways, including making it easy to:

• Assemble ad-hoc teams and contribute as a group to real-time meeting minutes
• Collaborate across organizations with the ability to invite external colleagues by email
• Leverage experts and files to build a best-of-breed sales presentation, RFP response, etc.
• Keep people up to date and  participate in relevant topics and conversations
• Share and synchronize files from the desktop to the cloud so everyone can find the latest version quickly and easily

Marking the first time Vibe Cloud is available for purchase, the enterprise version brings social and real-time together in a secure manner, across business and company boundaries and gives users a place to work together to achieve better results. In addition to the desktop-to-cloud two way file synchronization, email integration and robust editing tools available with the basic version, the enterprise edition includes:

• Organizational management console: allows enterprise IT to centrally manage access controls according to the organization's security policies.
• Federated authentication and single-sign on: uses industry standard SAML to integrate seamlessly with enterprise identity and access management systems for policy-driven provisioning.
• Unlimited groups: gives users the ability to create as many groups as needed to match the fast pace of new and evolving joint business work efforts and opportunities.
• More storage: increases the basic version's storage limit of 250 MB/user to a pooled company storage of 5 GB/user so people can share, store and leverage the files they need.
• Data ownership: gives the enterprise ownership of all data stored across users' groups in their domain and facilitates compliance efforts.
• World-class support: includes premium support from Novell to keep your business on track and collaborating around the clock.

"Novell Vibe Cloud is an innovative product that brings together social and real-time communications with Novell's rich history in collaboration tools," said Colleen O'Keefe, senior vice president and general manager, Novell Collaboration Solutions and Global Services. "This fast, secure and easy-to-use solution gives the user, and the business, a tool they want to work in along with the flexibility and control they need to be both protected and productive."

Novell Vibe Enterprise Social Getworking Program

Novell will be selecting up to 10 eligible customers who signup at www.novell.com/socialgetworkingprogram to receive free consulting to help get their organization up and running on the enterprise edition of Novell Vibe Cloud. Novell will work with participating organizations closely to ensure optimal planning, setup, communication and support along the way.

Availability

Novell Vibe Cloud basic and enterprise versions are available worldwide today. Signup for the basic version at https://vibe.novell.com and for the enterprise version at http://www.novell.com/products/vibe-cloud/how-to-buy/. To learn more about Novell Vibe Cloud and how it can help your organization, visit http://www.novell.com/vibe-cloud.

About Novell

Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL), a leader in Intelligent Workload Management, helps organizations securely deliver and manage computing services across physical, virtual and cloud computing environments.  We help customers reduce the cost, complexity, and risk associated with their IT systems through our solutions for identity and security, systems management, collaboration and Linux* based operating platforms. With our infrastructure software and ecosystem of partnerships, Novell integrates mixed IT environments, allowing people and technology to work as one. For more information, visit www.novell.com.  

Novell, the Novell logo, and the N logo are registered trademarks and Novell Vibe is a trademark of Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries.  *All third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

SOURCE Novell, Inc.