BoxWorks 2012: Jive CEO argues enterprises need to embrace social, mobile

SAN FRANCISCO -- When you embrace the enterprise, you have to embrace the leading trends, which are social and mobile, according to Jive CEO and chairman Tony Zingale.

See also: Box talks up 'reinventing the game' for employees, partners at BoxWorks 2012

Sitting down for a surprise fireside chat during BoxWorks 2012 on Monday morning with Box CEO Aaron Levie, Zingale said that all of the company's resources -- whether it be research and development investments as well as Jive's approximately 500 employees -- are dedicated to delivering a social business solution that is platform-agnostic.

"There's a lot of wasted time going on inside the enterprise," Zingale argued, explaining that the infusion of social technologies have the potential to increase productivity gains.

At Jive, Zingale asserted that the Palo Alto, Calif.-based company has built an elegant user experience because "that's what matters," but that Jive also delivers it in a way in which enterprises can consume it immediately -- whether it is behind a firewall and/or in the cloud.
"The basic concept in our software system is a concept of a person," Zingale said. "People network with people. People collaborate on content."

He added that an important focus at Jive is recognizing that employees and partners connect over software applications that cross inside and outside of a company, and that "no one lives in an SAP or Oracle hardware stack."

Zingale said that Jive has started its strategy around this architecture with a mobile-first approach "because that is going to be the paradigm of interaction overtime."

"The tablet replaced the laptop, and the mobile phone is an extension of that," Zingale posited.