Jive Software, Inc., the industry’s largest pure-play social business provider, today introduced Jive !App Experiences, a breakthrough capability that seamlessly integrates applications into the social business workflow. The new capability is part of Jive’s next-generation social business platform, also introduced today. Jive !App Experiences are available immediately via Jive Cloud, Jive’s public cloud service, and in Try Jive, Jive’s new 30-day free trial. Try Jive enables teams of any size to work together using Jive for Teams, a new easy-to-use group collaboration solution built on Jive’s latest platform.

Last year, Jive pioneered the use of applications in social business with the Jive Apps Market, providing an array of purpose-built apps that users could easily install to extend the functionality of the Jive system. Jive !App Experiences take this capability a big step further, enabling users to invoke powerful applications and merge them fluidly into documents, discussions, and other activities.

“This is really a new paradigm–not just for social business, but for business applications in general,” said Tony Zingale, Jive CEO. “We’re turning the old model of portlets, Web Parts, and dashboards on its head–moving from a world where users have to jump from one application to another, to a single integrated experience where everything you need is at your fingertips. Jive !App Experiences give users the power to enhance and customize their work environment in ways that were never possible before. This is one of the ways our new platform makes social business a more holistic, pervasive experience, and we expect it to change the way applications are used across the industry.”

Leading !Apps Available Now
Many Jive Apps partners are supporting the initiative with applications designed to take advantage of the new capabilities. The new !Apps are available now in the Jive !Apps Market on Jive Cloud. They include:
• Appirio’s Social Selling !App brings account and opportunity information from Salesforce.com directly into Jive discussions so all employees, not just sales reps, can collaborate on increasing win rates and reducing sales cycles.

• Box’s Box for Jive !App brings Box folders and files directly into Jive discussions so customers can see and collaborate on Box documents while creating and viewing content in Jive.

• Goshido’s task and project management !App allows employees to create and insert actions from Goshido right inside Jive documents and discussions so they can seamlessly manage their personal daily to-do lists and participate in complex projects that span functional and company boundaries.

• HEDLOC’s CRM !App lets users brings lead, opportunity, and account information from SugarCRM directly into Jive discussions so sales reps can easily collaborate on important deals to drive higher win rates and revenue.

• INXPO’s virtual events !App allows employees to seamlessly launch rich virtual event experiences including video and chat to participate in their CEO’s latest company update, view a product launch, or engage in sales training, to cite a few examples.

• LucidChart’s diagramming !App allows users to create and insert diagrams into Jive content, making it easy for teams to document business processes and communicate visually.

• Wrike’s social project management !App allows workers to organize tasks, schedule their projects and easily track progress. Now, it also gives employees the ability to embed Wrike tasks in Jive discussions and content, so those tasks can be read and updated from anywhere within Jive.

“Our enterprise customers want to collaborate on their Box content wherever they may be.  With the Box for Jive !App, businesses can now seamlessly share and collaborate on Box content right from within the Jive platform. We’re excited to partner with Jive to deliver greater efficiencies and functionality for the cloud-connected enterprise.” — Karen Appleton, VP of Business Development at Box

“Customers tell us they want deeper integration between Jive and Goshido. The new !Apps capability hits the mark.  Now, employees don’t have to switch context between Jive and Goshido. As they create content in Jive they can use Goshido without leaving the page. ” — Tom Brennan, CEO at Goshido

“The first time we saw the !Apps demo we knew that Jive was changing the game. It’s not just an integration–it’s a user-driven integration. With HEDLOC’s CRM !App, employees can now thoughtfully bring accounts and opportunities from SugarCRM into Jive so they can collaborate where and when it makes sense to them.” — Bruno Pisano, CEO at HEDLOC

“INXPO is a very feature-rich platform with video and real-time capabilities for virtual events. With the !App capability of launching an embedded experience of an INXPO event from anywhere, Jive is becoming a true platform for the enterprise. We know our customers are going to love this new functionality.” — Drew VanVooren, President at INXPO

!Apps Without Borders
With Jive !App Experiences, users can transparently merge !App functionality into whatever they’re working on. Users simply type a “!” character and choose the desired !App function from a pop-up menu. Jive calls this unprecedented capability “!App mentioning” (like @mentioning). For example, a user collaborating on a business plan can insert the latest pipeline report using a CRM !App, or embed a chart using a diagramming !App, or assign a task to another user with a project management !App — all without ever leaving the document.

A second capability, called App Actions, lets users share content, discussions, and other activities with any third-party app with a single click. For example, a user could click to submit a document to a translation app or log a discussion about a product bug into an issue tracking tool.

Big Benefits for Developers and IT Teams
The Jive !Apps Market has major benefits for all stakeholders. Customer IT organizations get a simple way to build new applications, repurpose existing ones, and distribute third-party apps to end users. IT can pre-approve applications and make them available to users via the !Apps Market. Users can select the functions they need and immediately access them with a click. This self-provisioning process simplifies the job of IT and makes users happier. Application developers can leverage Jive’s social features without having to build them from scratch themselves, and gain access to a large market of Jive customer companies and end users via a simple, low-cost distribution channel (the Jive !Apps Market and Jive Cloud).

Built on OpenSocial Standards
!App Experiences are based on the latest OpenSocial standards, providing scalable plug-and-play interoperability, as opposed to the proprietary development platforms used by some vendors.

“This is an excellent example of how community-driven innovation from the OpenSocial standard can be leveraged in an innovative and customer-friendly way,” said Mark Weitzel, President of the OpenSocial Foundation and Developer Evangelist at Jive. “With Jive’s introduction of !App Experiences, we’ve now raised the bar for rich application experiences that help users get their work done.”

For more information, visit Jive Software.

To showcase the latest trends and best practices in social business, Jive presents the JiveLive Tour, an eight-city seminar series in May and early June, 2012. To learn more,  visit the JiveLive Tour site.