MS Office

Microsoft has now planned to have social networking services inside its Office 2010 applications. Microsoft Office 2010 is planned to be released this year.

Social media sites like LinkedIn have already started creating plugins which can integrate your Outlook with LinkedIn by passing updates to your inboxes. Microsoft is working with MySpace and Facebook to create a similar synch program.

Dev Balasubramanian, Outlook Office group product manager stated, “”It really is about bringing friends, family, and colleagues into you inbox,” Balasubramanian said in a video posted at the US software giant’s website.”

Dev also added, “As you communicate with them you can see their social activities; you can see all of the folks in your social network and it updates as you are reading your email.”

Though Microsoft feels LinkedIn connection would help people using email programs stay updated on job status, contact informations or affiliations on the friend network, one would feel would many companies allow these features be used by its employees. Given the fact that LinkedIn is a huge source for job updates, job searches and enquiries.

Elliot Shumkler, product management director, LinkedIn mentions, “LinkedIn is all about your professional network. Meanwhile, Outlook powers the professional inbox so the match is very clear.”

The test version is available online at office.com/beta

Cisco is strengthening its plan to enter into the internet industry with the purchase of the messaging platform, Jabber. Cisco has already purchased WebEx, Securent, PostPath and IronPort. The Jabber acquisition will help Cisco enhance its services across multiple platforms by providing on-premise and on-demand solutions. Doug Dennerline, Cisco senior vice-president of the Collaboration Software Group stated “Enterprise organizations want an extensible presence and messaging platform that can integrate with business process applications and easily adapt to their changing needs.” He also stated that the acquisition will help extend the instant messaging service and make Cisco a interoperability benchmark.Jabber is a popular messaging platform and it is compatible with different systems and platforms. MS Office Com Server, AOL AIM, Google, Yahoo! And IBM Sametime can be used with Jabber. Employees of Jabber would become part of the Collaboration Software Group which consists of Ciscos most profitable businesses like the IOS network operating system, Unified Communications solutions, SaaS offering, policy management and network and service management.