ReadWriteEnterprise

As 2010 draws to a close we're taking a look at a few enterprise startups that show promise and that we haven't covered on ReadWriteEnterprise.

Podio is a highly customizable Web-based enterprise collaboration application. Like Huddle it emphasizes external collaboration as well as internal collaboration. Podio's distinguishing features are its large internal app store and its app builder. End-users can easily add or modify existing apps from the more than 2,000 apps available in the app store, or build new ones using a point and click interface.

SnapLogic is a cloud integration platform. It offers an app store (called the SnapStore) of connectors (called snaps) for integrating services like Box, Netsuite, and Salesforce.com. Unlike Jive or Salesforce.com, which offer services in addition to an app store, SnapLogic is focused on being a platform for connecting other services. Customers can also build their own snaps through a visual programming interface.

SnapLogic rigorously vets submissions to its app store, and applications are sandboxed. SnapLogic Server has support for both Active Directory and LDAP, enabling enterprises to integrate services with their existing access controls.

As 2010 draws to a close we're taking a look at a few enterprise startups that show promise and that we haven't covered on ReadWriteEnterprise.

Erply is a Web-based ERP application with support for accounting, inventory, invoicing, CRM, e-commerce, POS and more. Erply is trying to compete with established ERP vendors by offering a dead-simple and affordable ERP solution targeted at retailers.

Erply was a winner of Seedcamp 2009 where it received €50,000 in funding. The Estonian company has since raised $2 million, according to TechCrunch. It was also recently selected by the Wall Street Journal as one of the top ten European startups of the year.

As 2010 draws to a close we're taking a look at a few enterprise startups that show promise and that we haven't covered on ReadWriteEnterprise.

Jama Software's flagship product is Contour, a Web-based requirements management application for development teams and consultants. Contour's killer app is Review Center, a collaboration module that enables users to discuss requirements and incorporate feedback into a project.

As 2010 draws to a close we're taking a look at a few enterprise startups that show promise and that we haven't covered on ReadWriteEnterprise.

DokDok wants to bring document management into your email. Unlike Mainsoft's harmon.ie (which we covered here), DokDok doesn't seek to eliminate email attachments. The DokDok team accepts that attachments aren't going away, so instead they're trying to make attachments work. DokDok currently offers a Google Apps gadget and a Chrome extension that displays attachment version history in Gmail. The Chrome extension also offers API-based integration between Gmail and Highrise.

The annual Five on Five gives IBM's predictions for the next five years. The predictions this year are thought provoking but one really caught our attention.

The hologram. As in the "Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope," kind of hologram.

IBM Labs says the hologram will be a part of our lives in the next five years. You will be able to beam 3D images to people who can then talk with you as they walk down the street. It will be as if you are walking with them. 3D cameras will get more sophisticated and eventually small enough to launch holograms with a mobile device.

oDesk is a marketplace for online work teams. Each month, it publishes a report with information the service collects from its own community of employers and job prospectors.

For its year-end report, oDesk looked at prior data from its own database of 890,000 contractors and 220,000 employers. The service has more than a million users and over $12 million in work performed each month.

The company used that data to report about the top markets, categories and jobs for 2010, as well as what to expect in 2011.

Socialtext just released version 4.5.2 of its enterprise social media suite to hosted customers. The new version features several new features including an OpenSocial widget builder for both developers and non-developers, Google Analytics integration and a new HTML5-based mobile interface. The new features fit into the ongoing trends of putting development tools into the hands of non-developers, the increased role of analytics and HTML5 making its way into the enterprise.

Last week we reported on accusations that FBI contractors had planted backdoors in the open source operating system OpenBSD. OpenBSD developers have been auditing code since the accusations surfaced last Tuesday. Some bugs have been found and patched, but no evidence of backdoors has been discovered. OpenBSD founder Theo de Raadt believes believes that if said backdoors were ever authored they never made it into OpenBSD.

Gregory Perry, a former employee of the now defunct security firm NETSEC, sent de Raadt an e-mail last week accusing Jason Wright of planting backdoors in OpenBSD on behalf of the FBI. Wright has firmly denied the charge.

We talked to Michael Krigsman, the CEO of Asuret and writer of the IT Project Failures blog, about why IT projects fail and what can be done about it. Krigsman says there is no "magic bullet" for ensuring success or preventing failure but there are some common mistakes that can be avoided.

Customers, consultants, and vendors form The Devil's Triangle. These are the three parties that are a part of every major software deployment. Each has got to get its part of the deployment process right or the whole thing will be a bust. Krigsman told us the most crucial things each party needs to get right and gave some advice on how each party can reduce the chances of project failure.