Lotus Connections gets Twitter-like updates

IBM has updated its Lotus Connections business collaboration software with wikis and Twitter-like microblogging functionality.

Lotus Connections 2.5, announced at the IBM Worldwide Collaboration Summit on Tuesday, is part of the company's previously stated plan to bring home technology into the business environment.

Connections already allows users to create online communities, and the new version will let a community owner add in features such as blogs, wikis and file sharing, IBM said.

"With Lotus Connections, we have merged document sharing and social networking capabilities to create a comprehensive collaboration platform for businesses," said Jeff Schick, vice president of social software at IBM, in a statement.

The update includes a micro-blogging tool called Profiles, which allows a corporate community's members to post status updates, as with Twitter or Facebook. "This enables users within their professional network to see what they are working on and offer comments," IBM said.

As with other wikis, the wiki technology in Connections 2.5 allows multiple users to create, view and edit content uploaded to a collaborative website. The separate file-sharing functionality allows users to upload documents, presentations and other content.

Lotus Connections, launched in January 2007, was an attempt by IBM to integrate the popularity of social networking sites with its existing Lotus Notes and Domino Groupware applications, and more effectively compete with Microsoft Exchange and Sharepoint collaboration software.

Microsoft has stated the importance of web 2.0 technology to its Sharepoint collaboration software and has hinted that it might be preparing to release a product that would bring some of the collaborative aspects of micro-blogging tool Twitter to business users.