enterprise

Yammer, the Facebook for enterprises, has announced that they're looking to launch an official app for Windows Phone 7. Built from the ground up, this soon-to-be freely available app will bring social interaction to the enterprise level for employees who use WP7. It is also stated that the app will be Mango compatible.

Some highlighted features:

• Threaded Conversations - Post, reply and like messages. Easily follow conversations with replies displayed underneath the original message.
• Multi-Feed Access - Quickly navigate between My Feed, Group Feeds and Company Feed to find relevant conversations.
• Multi-Network Access - Switch between various internal and external networks.
• Member Directory and Profiles - Find updates, links and files posted by a specific colleague in addition to contact information.
• Private Messages - Communicate privately with one or more colleagues. 
• Live Tile Integration - Receive real-time notifications from Yammer about new conversations and messages on your Windows Phone Start screen, all without opening the application.

Paul Bryan, senior director of product management in Microsoft's Windows Phone Division, mentions Yammer as a cutting-edge business app:

"Windows Phone offers software developers a best in class operating system and developer tools, and Yammer is a great example of the new wave of business apps partners are creating with these new capabilities. We're excited to see new cutting-edge business apps, like Yammer, join our growing app ecosystem and pleased to offer a way to help grow their business with Windows Phone Marketplace."

David Sacks, founder and CEO, Yammer had this to say about WP7:

"Millions of Windows Phone users will be able to access Yammer to connect with their colleagues and collaborate on the go. Many of our large enterprise customers rely on Microsoft technology to run their businesses. As we rapidly advance Yammer's enterprise social networking capabilities, we will continue to partner closely with Microsoft to integrate core Yammer functionality into its offerings."

As well as the WP7 news, Yammer has also announced a new version of its integration with Microsoft SharePoint. Yammer SharePoint 3.0 Web Part provides a real-time social layer to the SharePoint platform, making it more social, mobile and engaging for enterprise employees.

Source: Marketwire, via: WPSauce

Microsoft’s imposing array of cloud services and server tools are an area that they have very little competition. The promise of integration of those tools and services into Windows Phone 7 are a major topic of interest for many in the tech industry.

At the Microsoft Management Summit this week, a beta of System Center Configuration Manager 2010 (SCCM) was announced. SCCM is a tool for managing servers, workstations, and mobile devices in an enterprise environment. Microsoft introduced the ability for SCCM to handle management of multiple mobile platforms including Windows Phone 7, iPhone/iPad, and Android.

Our hope is that Microsoft will continue to integrate their tools and services into Windows Phone, positioning it as the premier option for IT shops to manage mobile devices.

Via: ZDNet

Although Windows Phone 7 is "consumer focused" with only light enterprise support (for now, future updates look to address this weakness), Microsoft is still interested in courting those in the non-consumer environment. In addition to their general WP7 for Business Page, Microsoft has just posted several specific articles to help IT Professionals integrate Windows Phone 7 in a business environment. The guides, which can be downloaded in PDF form, include Internet Explorer, Exchange integration, and security management.

A complete overview and list can be found here

Source: Microsoft; via: WindowsPhoneSecrets

Though we know Microsoft built Windows Phone 7 1.0 around consumers first, it sure has a lot to offer businesses as well. To get that message across, Microsoft just put out a "Small Business Mobility Kit" which consists of one PowerPoint file and one PDF documenting in detail how and why Windows Phone 7 will work for you. They even have a new website focusing just on this area: www.windowsphone.com/business.

The main thrust is of course Office, Shareppoint and the new Office 365 (cloud service). At the very least we know Microsoft hasn't forgotten about their bread and butter that is enterprise. We'll be watching to see adoption rates over the next six to twelve months to see if it pans out.

Source: Microsoft

Though Windows Phone 7 is primarily aimed at consumers during the initial launch, Microsoft already has a strong focus on enterprise built within the the OS (Office, Sharepoint, Skydrive, remote management, etc.). This enterprise focus will no doubt become even more robust during further revisions to the OS, hopefully giving Microsoft that edge once again over RIM.

One area that is of interest would be security and encryption. Turns out WP7 supports quite a few forms of data protection algorithms, including the following:

• AES
• HMACSHA1
• HMACSHA256
• Rfc2898DeriveBytes
• SHA1
• SHA256

This doesn't mean that encryption is directly supported out-of-the-box for end users, but it does mean that developers have a wide assortment of tools to handle data encryption when writing their own software for the platform. Rob Tiffiany demonstrates this by writing an app to encode some simple data on the fly. His impression is that WP7 has a very solid base for security, which to bring it around again, is not only is good for business but for corporate environments.