WordFrame Integra: bringing coherence to social tools

WordFrame launched Integra today. Who? What? With so many vendors vying for attention in the social tools space why would anyone care about this Coloradan based company? Long story short: they’ve released an open source platform for developing socialized websites that is or will support the kit of parts you’d otherwise have to assemble.

Unlike others that come from a heritage of having say a wiki or blog onto which other things are bolted, WordFrame stepped back and decided to develop a platform that can be deployed any way the customer wishes (on-premise, third party hosting or WordFrame hosted.)

When I first saw the product a few weeks back it was far from complete. The basic framework was in place, license administration which allows developers to license any way they wish was in as was a dedicated search application. Since that time, the product has moved forward significantly and can now be regarded as in general release at a price of $349 per annum for the platform license and all WordFrame authored applications. Hosting is an extra. So what is it and what can you do?

The current social tools landscape is rich with point solutions or as is increasingly the case specialized along SCRM lines. In the former case, companies are inevitably faced with integration challenges, in the latter, it is likely that specializing doesn’t lead to proliferation because different groups have different purposes. Integra solves this problem by allowing you to deploy however you wish but with the ability to add in as many communities as you need. You could for example spread out from an external facing website to internal open or closed groups and partner extranets.

SunGard Common Communities

Using profiles to control access, you can then determine which areas of the site a person can access and the degree of information that’s made available to them. Conversely, contributors can use access controls to place information in multiple locations so that the people who need to see that ’slice’ get access without having to first hunt around among communities.

In the spirit of open source but with an eye to the massive Microsoft based universe of potential users, WordFrame has opted to build on SQL 2005, providing access to the platform either through OpenID or Active Directory. It’s a smart compromise and smart choice because developers or tech savvy users can create new tables using SQL Express. What’s more, WordFrame assures me that whatever customizations a user decides upon or whatever micro vertical applications developers choose to deploy, WordFrame will ensure backwards compatibility. No forced march re-engineering here then.

From the internal blurbs:

Integra provides Templates with their associated applications that you can uses as a starting point to build your website. You can then add the applications you need and use the platform to create the extra functionality you need. As of today, we have the following applications:

• The content management system (CMS) which is an integral part of the platform, and which allows the designer to have complete creative control over the user experience.
• The search appliance which is an integral part of the platform
• Multi-author Community Blogging that could be used internally or externally in a blog or forum style
• Support System for management and support of multiple projects

We plan to release at least one new Template or application a month with the following planned before the end of 2010:

• Forums
• Personal Portal
• Wiki
• Micro-Blogging
• Ideas management
• Social Networking
• Document Management
• Simple CRM

A particularly cool feature is ’smart browse.’ This allows users to make inline edits without having to go back and forwards between the front and back end of the system. That will be a time saver and help users get things done without becoming burdened with interfaces they don’t need to see.

My one concern centers on the release cycle. During our conversation, I asked WordFrame whether the roadmap list (above) represents the order in which new functionality will be made available. The answer was yes and no. Personal portals which you can think of as akin to NetVibes will be released around the same time as the wiki - in about 3-4 elapsed developer weeks. Simple CRM, which may have Salesforce.com hooks will come towards the end of the year. Forums can be created using the platform but a dedicated forum solution is due ’soon.’ My guess is much will depend on customer demand while the company develops along multiple lines.

This solution has been a long time in gestation but my first glimpse suggests that WordFrame has done what many have been waiting for a long time. All the social tools you’d likely need in one place to be deployed as you need and without tying you to any particular hosting provider. You might ask - why can’t I do the same pretty much for free in Wordpress?

First up, WP isn’t a CMS. Enterprises need CMS controls to manage the vast stores of information they are creating. Second, while incredibly powerful, WP plugins are notoriously inconsistent one from another. One I recently discarded was sucking 6 seconds of load time. Another, while useful calls numerous other web services and takes forever to load. Code quality in WP plugins is better than what I’ve seen from Joomla developers but even so, plugins remain a major source of performance degradation or outright failure.

Will WordFrame succeed? It will need to attract a large pool of developers willing to build vertical applications. One example I know about is for a portal that provides the company with access to three very different but related services its customers use. Presented in a dashboard, the company gets a 360 degree view of all customers and their service status regardless of the service they are using. This is replacing a tally system of the kind you’d see in an engineering jobshop.

As I came off the call, I thought - why hasn’t someone done this before? My next thought - who next will come out with something similar? I sense that WordFrame will have to run very fast and provide a lot of developer encouragement to make a serious dent in the market.

Disclosure: I’ve known the WordFrame people a few years and have recommended their WordFrame Communities solution to clients. David Terrar, who is involved directly with the company represents mutual clients and WordFrame is a sponsor to my personal weblog.