Jive has developed an idea generation and management application to its SBS collaboration suite, adding functionality that is becoming increasingly popular in groupware products.
Jive Ideation is designed to let employees capture, develop and discuss ideas that could turn into concrete projects, the company said on Tuesday. Right now, Jive SBS users perform this brainstorming process in stand-alone idea-management applications or even spreadsheets, said Ben Kiker, Jive's chief marketing officer.
"There are a number of smaller players that provide this capability. Many of our customers use those products and asked us to take a fresh look at the problem because even though they could get ideas into the system, they couldn't do all the collaboration around it," Kiker said.
"The odds of success in innovation management are greater when you have broad participation because you're leveraging social network and adopting community platforms, and that's what Jive SBS is all about," he added.
Used in conjunction with another Jive module called Jive Market Engagement, Jive Ideation can be populated with relevant ideas that customers, partners and other outside parties have entered into external sources like Twitter and other social networks, Kiker said.
Jive rival NewsGator last year added an idea management component to its collaboration suite, while vendors that specialize on idea management software, like Spigit and Brightidea, have in turn been adding enterprise social networking and collaboration capabilities to their products.
Organizations don't need to have Jive SBS in order to use Jive Ideation, but the application has been designed to be a complement to the collaboration suite, Kiker said. As with other Jive software, Ideation can be bought as hosted software or installed by the customer on its premises. It starts at US$20,000 for a one-year subscription.
