IBM has unveiled IBM Verse, the next-generation social mail software that leverages built-in analytics to give employees a new way to converse, find the right people and information fast, and get work done.
Delivered on the SoftLayer Cloud with enterprise-grade security, IBM Verse gives enterprise customers, small businesses and individuals a scalable, cloud-based social collaboration environment optimized for mobile and Web environments, IBM said
With email ranked as the most widely used collaboration tool, enterprise email market revenue is expected to touch $4.7 billion in 2017, according to IDC. By combining email with analytics, cloud, social and mobile technologies, IBM helps employees become more efficient.
“The convergence of analytics, cloud, social and mobile technologies is having a profound impact on our personal lives but also in the way we work as professionals,” said Anmol Nautiyal, director- IBM Social Business & IBM Smarter Workforce.
“These forces are reshaping how we make decisions, create and share new ideas and collaborate across teams to get work done,” Nautiyal added.
“With IBM Mail Next, we’ve applied analytics to enterprise email in a very unique way, and challenged our design teams to completely re-imagine the social collaboration experience with focus on engaging people and driving outcomes, not managing messages and inboxes.”
A unique feature of the messaging system is the ‘faceted search’ that enables users to pinpoint and retrieve specific information they’re seeking across all the various types of content within their email.
IBM Verse can learn unique employee preferences and priorities over time to provide instant context about a given project as well as the people and teams collaborating on it.
Clients using IBM Verse will also have the future option to embed a Watson feature into their collaboration environment, which enables users to query Watson on a given topic and receive a direct reply with answers ranked by degree of confidence, IBM said.
The announcement comes on the heels of IBM’s latest initiatives on enterprise mobility, including the partnership with Apple and the launch of Watson Analytics. In October, IBM also launched Navigator to boost productivity of employees. Recently IBM partnered with Twitter to enable businesses use Twitter data effectively to drive more informed decisions.
Cemex, a company specializing in building materials, is one of the first clients to participate in an early beta of the new offering.
IBM Verse features intelligent task prioritization to quickly find and prioritize the tasks that matter the most. With intuitive collaboration across devices, users can take action on content and conversations previously scattered across multiple tools such as email, calendar, to-dos, social networks, chats, online meetings and documents.
The email system provides deep context around the people and teams involved in a given task or project to drive more valuable employee engagements at the moment of impact. It also allows subject matter experts to share insight in two clicks or less in any social environment inside or outside their organization.
A freemium version delivered via the IBM Cloud Marketplace will be available in the first quarter of 2015. IBM Verse will also be offered as an app for both iOS and Android devices.
Rajani Baburajan
editor@infotechlead.com
