“The main functionality we were looking for is solved by Facebook, and so far the satisfaction rate has been stellar so don't want to fix what's not broken,” says Kyle Arteaga, VP, Corporate Communications, Serena Software.

The successful software company known for helping build other companies intranets using its Collage content management system or mash-up software no longer has an intranet of its own – they use Facebook. Well, Facebook isn’t in fact used for everything; Sharepoint houses private documents (login is required) and HiveLive is being used for sharing documents and additional collaboration.

“Fact is less than 2% of the material on our existing (previous) intranet was deemed confidential,” adds Arteaga. “Today, we use Facebook primarily for pictures, status updates, and team building exercises. There are a number of customers we speak to on the FB platform, as well as vendors. However, no specific business applications reside on FB as of yet.”

Serena is a growing software firm with a highly distributed workforce: 850 employees in 18 different countries, and 35% of its staff work from home – a true 21^st century company.

Now it’s worth noting that Facebook doesn’t offer what is termed a traditional intranet and it has very definitive limits. For example, it doesn’t offer employee self-service tools, a searchable news section or a corporate store.

So while the intranet is more of a collaboration platform that is supported by a document base in Sharepoint, the move to Facebook has been a success with a more than 90% penetration rate within global employee.

“Do I think that Facebook has a future in the Enterprise?” asks Arteaga. “Most definitely, but only if they want it.”

“So far we have received no indication from Facebook that they are looking at solving Enterprise concerns. Till then, we will continue to use it as we have, but we will not be investing heavily to port business applications onto this platform and will look to HiveLive instead.”

As I reported last week, developers have created about 1000 business applications for Facebook… but most of them are fun or social in nature. One application, Feedheads, allows the users to “share the feed items you like with your different friends and networks while also displaying your shared items on your profile.” It also works with Google Reader and NewsGator. So, in other words, think of the collaborative calendar offered by Lotus Notes (or Outlook) where the user can see the schedules of others. Feedheads allows you to see a lot more than their schedule depending on what that user or colleague wants to share (e.g. interesting articles, reports on the competition, meeting reminders, etc.).

“The problem for any business considering Facebook is that it’s a determinedly consumer play, to the extent that I don’t think it can ever seriously fly in the enterprise,” says analyst and ZDnet writer Phil Wainewright. “Facebook trades free functionality in return for attention and relationship data — and users give up a lot of their control over that data. Businesses aren’t willing to make that trade-off.

Serena is definitely a trailblazer and they, and other companies like them will influence Facebook to evolve it to include more business applications and features that may enable it to become a legitimate enterprise or intranet platform. This is one of the reasons why Microsoft would like to acquire it, but another reason why Facebook’s owners may in fact hold onto it, and expand its horizons with true enterprise intranet services.

CONTINUE THE DISCUSSION: Come join the discussion on Facebook on the Intranet Global Forum.

Or join us for the conference session on Facebook atEnterprise3 conference in San Diego. The session will feature a panel discussion with Serena Software's VP of Communications, Kyle Arteaga; Senior Director of Optaros, John Eckman; myself, and moderated by Jarrod Gingras, Analyst with CMSWatch.com.

I’ve given up on Digg. Now and forever more. It’s a complete waste of my time, and the World’s.

I once again went to ‘Digg’ an article (Microsoft wants Facebook) and it rejected my login twice. After finally logging in, I went through the long and horrifically unfriendly process of posting an article. It booted me from the system. I logged in again, and re-posted again. It booted me from the system again… the article was never posted. I wasted nearly 15 minutes.

This has happened to me more than one dozen times… in fact, I’ve never once – NEVER ONCE!!! – in all my attempts been able to “Digg” one damn thing! And I’ve been a member for 16 months!!!

The owners and developers of this sucky platform should be embarrassed. It looks pretty, but it’s functionally useless for far too many people like myself (and I’m not a luddite, goddam it).

Deli.co.us is far superior if far too many ways to mention. Oh sure, its not pretty like Digg, but it works!

Digg can bite me.

PS – I know there are going to be some clones that reply by saying “Oh I use Digg all the time and don’t have any problems! It must be you!”…. For those that are tempted to do so, re-read the above…. MORE THAN ONE DOZEN CONSECUTIVE TIMES this has happened, on different occasions, using different posts and links, and using different browsers. It’s not just me.

After failing in their US$47.5-billion bid for Yahoo, the giant Microsoft is looking more closely at Facebook. While the Wall Street Journal reported that Microsoft bankers have begun to look into a Facebook purchase, neither side has commented on the story (a sure sign that something is afoot).

Facebook in itself is a giant… one that could make Yahoo blush one day. With more than 70 million active users its value was pegged at US$15-billion last October when Microsoft bought a minority stake for a mere US$240-million.

What makes Facebook an even greater value than its investment price a mere 8 months ago is its growing popularity – and growing platform. There are only 7 websites on the planet that receive more monthly traffic than Facebook – and Facebook only opened to the public 18 months ago after starting as a college only niche. Of the sites that get more traffic ...

Microsoft’s flagship portal sits in fifth (according to the industry benchmark, Alexa.com). Its viral power is far stronger than MySpace (notwithstanding the music scene), and its growing at a faster clip. I don’t know of anyone that uses MySpace, and yet virtually everyone I know under the age of 45 has a Facebook account. According to ZincResearch.com, 90% of Canadians between the ages of 18 and 34 are Facebook members (9 million).

Of perhaps greater interest is the ever-expanding “Facebook Platform” and its potential as a platform service inside the corporation (for example, intranet platform). Facebook Platform is the place where all of those creative nerds build and add those cute little applications that are optional add ons to your Facebook profile. Popular applications include “Fun Wall” (2.5 million active users), “Scrabulous” and that dam vampire biting ‘game’.

Read my complete article Microsoft wants Facebook.

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