Enterprise collaboration SaaS Huddle and Outlook plugin vendor Xobni announced this morning a partnership to bring Huddle into users inboxes via Xobni. Huddle’s Xobni gadget will display a user’s Huddle activity stream, shared workspaces and latest files. Xobni already pulls profile information from sources such as LinkedIn, Facebook and Salesforce.com, but Huddle integration bring a new dimension to the plugin as an professional collaboration tool.
Huddle can be used to collaborate both internally and externally. Co-founder Andy McLoughlin told us previously external collaboration has been a particularly strong selling point for the company. Xobni’s Sharepoint integration may be good for internal collaboration, and LinkedIn and Salesforce.com bring information from external sources to users of Xobni, but Huddle can bridge the gap between internal worker and passive customer.
The two companies hope to reduce the burden of e-mail and information overload. Huddle by creating an alternative to e-mail, and Xobni by adding context and making it easier to search. The combination of the two makes sense as e-mail can’t yet be entirely replaced.
We’ve covered Xobni’s work for the past couple years and the company stays constantly ahead of the competition, such as Outlook Social Connector in adding features.
Rapportive is a similar plugin for Gmail.
