Last year, when we asked whether Facebook could break into the enterprise world, Constellation Research CEO and principal analyst R “Ray” Wang said “I’d see LinkedIn in this category first because they have the trust of the corporate and professional communities.” LinkedIn may never get into that business, but there a few ways you can use LinkedIn for working with teams today. It’s become a popular choice as a login system, so it’s a natural fit for project collaboration software-as-a-service providers.
Discourse
Discourse, a Polish startup that launched today, uses LinkedIn as the foundation for its enterprise collaboration platform. Instead of having to build your social network from scratch, Discourse allows you to start with your existing professional network. Discourse is emphasizing the need to collaborate with users outside the firewall and, like many other enterprise 2.0 companies, the importance of process in collaboration software.
Huddle
We’ve covered Huddle a few times before. Like Discourse, the company is focused on external collaboration. Unlike Discourse, its LinkedIn integration comes through the LinkedIn Application Directory. Huddle’s app allows you to use your LinkedIn credentials to login – and more importantly, it lets your LinkedIn connections use their LinkedIn credentials to access files and projects that you share with them. This approach may be more appealing to enterprises, especially ones that already use Huddle.
Manymoon
Manymoon, which was recently acquired by Salesforce.com, is also available in the LinkedIn Application Directory. And like Huddle, Manymoon allows users to login with their LinkedIn credentials. It’s traditionally been focused on the SMB market, but the Salesforce.com acquisition may help it scale up.
