by Bill Ives
December 20, 2007 at 11:40 am
· Filed under Enterprise 2.0
Yes, there is an enterprise Facebook market. You knew this was coming. I got an email a few days ago from Worklight, Announcing WorkBook, “a Secured Facebook for the Enterprise. WorkBook, an addition to the WorkLight 2.0 software platform currently in use by Global 500 companies, allows employees to interact with their colleagues using the hugely popular Facebook service, while eliminating the security issues that have constantly dogged organizations looking to leverage and embrace the social networking revolution.” Look what happens when you open up your APIs.
Unlike Facebook which is free, Workbook pricing starts at $10 per user per month, with volume discount pricing available. I hope that their security features warrant this. Serena, as I wrote about on the blog, created their own security features through custom Facebook apps. Not every company may have that capability but Serena assured me the apps were quick and easy. However, there are many companies that may want more security than they can build themselves.
Now I am not knocking Workbook, in fact, I have been in favor of Facebook for the enterprise 2.0. If this helps get it in the door then that is great. I wonder if Facebook shares in the $10 cover charge per person? Do other Facebook apps charge? Could they charge? Who gets all the money? I am showing my lack of depth here. Perhaps the gold rush for Facebook apps has more direct revenue that I thought.
Here is what Dan Farber & Larry Dignan said in WorkLight secures Facebook for enterprises. They have pictures. They also link to Andrew McAfee on the related security concerns around apps like Facebook in People, Computers, and People People.
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Bill,
WorkBook is a security overlay for Facebook. The way it works is an employee to a company logs into his public Facebook account and then installs the WorkBook application, just like they would install Funwall or SuperPoke. Once the application is installed, they are authenticated by their enterprise authentication engine, which provides them with the appropriate access to enterprise data based upon their corporate roles. This information is served from the WorkBook server (which is installed behind the firewall) and viewed on a Facebook canvas (technically an iFrame).
What the customers are paying for is not for any Facebook functionality, but rather for an on-premise server that is able to securely serve protected enterprise data through Web 2.0 tools, like Facebook. Facebook, in this case, is the front-end tool through which information is delivered, much like iGoogle, MS Live, Netvibes, and other home page servers can be used to display application data via gadgets, widgets, or RSS (which is the original WorkLight functionality).
“Enterprise data” in the WorkBook context includes things like “Q&A,” search for expertise, news sharing, contact information sharing, even application data, – basically all the social networking functions one would expect. However, Facebook provides none of this functionality – it all comes from WorkBook.
The Facebook model is to encourage vendors like WorkLight to develop 3rd party apps and hence, enrich Facebook’s value by bringing more users to the party. As such, the assumption that a fee for WorkBook should be shared with Facebook is not correct. Just thought I would clear that up.
Bill Ives wrote @ December 26th, 2007 at 1:31 pm
David - Thanks for the clear explanation of Workbook. As I said in my post, I think that Workbook can serve a useful function both in terms of actual functionality but also overcoming concerns in the adoption process. My comments on the cover charge were, in part, in fun. Clearly you deserve the fee if you provide the value described. I was also wondering about the Facebook model in general. I know that they open up their application for third party tools at no cost to the third party. This was a smart move on their part for the reasons you stated. I had just not seen an third party that charged a fee before (again they were generally not business services like yours which deserves a fee), perhaps I had just missed this, and others do as well. Bill
Appreciate your sharing thoughts on this topic. I’ve just seen a demo of the WorkLight software, and Facebook is only a part of the picture. Securing and feeding widgets in iGoogle pages (and even enabling SAP transactions in them) is another capability they cite.
I’d classify them as an enterprise RSS vendor with some novel security approaches to platforms and portals that have open APIs. The bigger picture is not the Facebook interface, it’s all the systems WorkLight taps into and makes more accessible, via whatever front end.
Alan,
Your observation about WorkBook/WorkLight is correct - WorkBook and Facebook are only part of the bigger picture. WorkLight however, is not an “RSS vendor” per se; RSS is only one of many Web 2.0 technologies that we enable within a secure enterprise environment. WorkLight, in fact, allows employees to collaborate with peers and access application data via many Web 2.0 tools like RSS, personalized home pages, widgets and gadgets, social networks, social bookmarking and others.
In this sense, WorkLight is an Enterprise 2.0 “platform” or “operating system.” Today, we support many enterprise applications and Web 2.0 tools and services. If tomorrow, another application is needed or if another web 2.0 service becomes popular, we do not have to re-architect the product, we merely add another interface through which information can be extracted or can be displayed through. All the essential elements of the Enterprise 2.0 platform, such as the capability to extract/display information across multiple systems, being able to tap into native security systems to authenticate and apply access control to data, to ensure that data is secured end-to-end, and to provide web 2.0 self-service capabilities to employees, are all basic parts of the WorkLight platform. RSS is just one aspect of the big picture.
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