Microsoft, Telligent and speakTECH are working in cooperation to form the three legs of a triangle known as the Social Enterprise Alliance. The Alliance is designed to offer an enterprise social networking solution for companies both in manufacturing and consumer goods sectors.
Rather than co-branding sites Google’s Friend Connect or Facebook Connect, the Alliance is supposed to be a stand alone, one of a kind solution, defining and developing communities based around a company. According to general manager Greg Urquhart of U.S. ISV and National System Integrators, U.S. Partners Group at Microsoft,
“The Social Enterprise Alliance with Telligent and speakTECH demonstrates Microsoft’s commitment to recognizing partners that collaborate to offer a higher level of solutions and services offerings that are more relevant to customer needs. By integrating Telligent’s Community Server platform with speakTECH’s integration and services expertise — all of which leverage the Microsoft Office SharePoint Server platform — companies have a better solution to connect with their customers, partners, suppliers and investors.”
Telligent, a leader in enterprise software for online communities and collaboration, has two main offerings – Community Server and Community Server Evolution. Their platform empowers collaboration brands such as Dell, Electronic Arts, Intel, Microsoft, and Reader’s Digest. Their staff is impressive, including Chief Social Scientist Marc Smith, formerly Senior Sociologist Researcher on Microsoft’s R&D team, who now leads Telligent’s R&D analytics and business intelligence efforts – more specifically, Telligent Harvest. Rob Howard, founder and CTO of Telligent, said:
“Manufacturing and consumer goods companies have a unique opportunity to put the power of social computing to work across all aspects of their business, improving engagement and collaboration of employees, partners, distributors and customers. Holistic social computing solutions enable the agile and innovative enterprise.”
Interactive design and technology firm speakTECH brings consultancy, design and development services to the table, building on technology such as Microsoft Office and components of the Windows Platform. Their goal is to improve customer experiences and empower client personnel, improving operational efficiency and uniting technology. Aaron Sloman, CEO of speakTECH commented:
“Companies are finding the return on investment for social media campaigns to be aggressively outpacing traditional marketing strategies. It’s driving a transformation where traditional marketing departments need to re-tool as interactive marketing agencies.”
Tags: Microsft, social networks