Rosenberg says the big gain with Newsgator integration into SharePoint is that it has enlivened the MySites profile pages with more social features and allowed Edelman to create groups and community pages that interconnect through microblogging, tagging and social bookmarking.
A benefit of using Newsgator enterprise server with SocialSites, says Rosenberg, is that Edelman can port feeds from external sources -- external blogs (from employees and clients), Facebook and Twitter accounts -- into activity streams on MyClient and MySite pages in SharePoint.
"This is a big win for us because as a PR and communications firm, we like to keep things as open and social as possible," says Rosenberg.
Staying Ahead of SharePoint 2010
Both Edelman and Accenture are actively preparing for an upgrade to SharePoint 2010. Yet while both admit that the social tools in SharePoint 2010 are improving, they still don't match the social bookmarking and microblogging features of Newsgator and other Enterprise 2.0 vendors, as well as their ability to accommodate group and community pages, they say.
However, Accenture's Dana notes that although social software vendors provide capabilities beyond what SharePoint 2010 is offering, they will all have to adjust to SharePoint to survive.
"They have to stay ahead of Microsoft," he says. "Newsgator may end up getting rid of some features that are newly available in SharePoint 2010."
Shane O'Neill is a senior writer at CIO.com. Follow him on Twitter at twitter.com/smoneill. Follow everything from CIO.com on Twitter at twitter.com/CIOonline.
