In today’s working environment, companies are geographically dispersed in multiple locations, often separated from customers, colleagues and partners. To avoid the need to travel hundreds or even thousands of miles to meet in person, collaborative tools could be the answer. Companies are increasingly seeing the benefit of these technologies and with the introduction of methods such as VoIP, instant messaging and web conferencing, individuals can communicate in a virtual environment, creating increased productivity and improved business process workflow.

IntraLinks is well ahead of the game and has provided collaborative technology in the form of IntraLinks Exchanges for over a decade, enabling the secure exchange of critical information. We recently exhibited at Solutions Intranet et Travail Collaboratif, a conference focused on collaborative work solutions in Paris, to showcase our solutions and to meet with customers. To understand more about the impact collaboration tools have on the market, I attended a workshop called ‘Collaboration in business, real cure for the crisis’ presented by Patrick Schambel, Managing Director from Silverpeas.

I recently sat down with the folks at VisibleGains and other members of our technology team to talk about our thoughts on structured team collaboration, as well as search and our partner Attivio. Mush Hakhinian also gives an interesting talk about security with two-factor authentication and our partner RSA, while Charlie Weiblen discusses performance enhancement and our partner Akamai.

Please click on the video below to watch.

I was recently reading a Gartner report on market trends in Team and Social Software by Tom Eid and Bianca Francesca Granetto. (The full June 2009 report, called "Market Trends: Web Conferencing, Teaming and Social Software," is available for purchase from Gartner.) The report is very insightful in pointing out "the convergence in technologies and usage across unified communications, Web 2.0, team collaboration and web conferencing."