Chatter!!

Chatter is a new way for people to communicate in the company. It is considered Salesforce.com’s collaboration cloud. It allows an individual the opportunity to follow anyone in the company on any project. Everything is in one place, Chatter has the same collaboration features on Facebook or Twitter combined with the sharing and security rules of Salesforce. One of the coolest things about Chatter is the filters, you can follow just your team or you can follow your largest account, it is your call. Twitter is also integrated into this tool, when relevant accounts or topics get mentioned on Twitter it goes into the Chatter feed. Preview and comment on a newly posted project plan directly in the feed. It also allows you to follow back end applications such as HR. Custom apps that are developed on the force.com platform will update automatically to a live feed that filters into Chatter. You can follow everything that goes on inside of the company making sure no one is left out of the loop. With the force.com platform, you can track any data you want, such as orders, discounts, references, competitors... anything. This CRM app reflects your business in a real time feed which, allows developers using force.com to build a social app with just a few mouse clicks. Of course Chatter works with your iPhone and Blacberry. Real time insights that lead to better decisions that is what Chatter stands for!!

Interview with David Skyberg

On 3-30-2010 I talked with David Skyberg an alum of the CSIX Cloud Computing SIG. He is a technical product manager for Ping Identity. His job is to seek out what the market needs and where the market is going. He then delivers his ideas to the engineers that create the product for Ping Identity customers. Ping Idenity has over 125 SaaS customers and Federated Identity is his business. Federated Identity, in a non technical description, allows you to make a reservation for a flight and that same check in (Identity scan) would allow you to make a reservation for a hotel, allowing you to surf the internet with one ID scan. What Dave loves most about the position Ping Identity has in the Cloud is that it makes it viable and accessible. He mentioned to look out for SAML claims based integration of authorization and authentication of Federated Identity. He also mentioned claims based authentication by Microsoft leveraging WCF and WIF smart clients Integration with AZURE. One thing he expects to change is the adoption or migration away from OPENID. A big thanks to David Skyberg for making room in his busy schedule to participate in a short interview, CSIX Cloud Computing SIG wishes him the best at Ping Identity.