Telligent Brings Social Networking To The Enterprise

Company:

Headquarters: Dallas, Texas

Technology Sector: Software

Key Product: Telligent Community Server

Year Founded: 2004

Number of Channel Partners: 10 - 15 enterprise partners in U.S.

Ideal Channel Partner: Enterprise-focused solution provider

Why You Should Care: Telligent takes social networking to the enterprise level with business-class security features.

The Lowdown: Telligent Systems gives channel partners an entree into the social networking craze with a platform that supports both internal and public-facing online communities.

The vendor's portfolio includes Community Server, which enables customers to establish online

social networking platforms where users can post blogs, share photos and create groups for collaboration.

Partners can help their customers take advantage of blogs, wikis and other online communications tools to streamline their business processes, facilitating training and other types of knowledge. For example, a customer could set up an internal wiki so employees can pose and answer questions, making training easier.

The external uses for Telligent's social media platform include letting customers create vibrant communities that can set up an information loop where clients discuss and ask questions, further increasing the effectiveness of a business.

Telligent's platform also gathers metrics on all the conversations that are occurring, so businesses can determine where the most value is being added.

In addition to Community Server, Telligent's social media lineup also includes Community Server Evolution and Harvest Reporting Server.

"If applied properly, social computing can be a valuable tool to be selling and implementing for clients," said Ken Vernon, vice president of marketing for Telligent Systems. "It creates an internal- or external-facing community that analyzes activity and serves it up into dashboards customers can use to understand and moderate the community."

For partners, the value-add comes in helping customers streamline their operations by being more closely attuned to what's happening in and out of the shop.

"Simply put, the Telligent solution allows partners to go to customers and say, 'We can help you with your business problems,'" said Mary Glen, senior director, global alliances for Telligent Systems.