Jive adds virtual ‘rooms’ to get workers using email less, integrates with Box

Enterprise social networking business Jive Software has launched its spring 2013 update with new features including “rooms” for collaborating on specific projects, and integration with cloud storage service Box.

Jive competes with Microsoft’s Yammer and Salesforce’s Chatter to provide enterprise social networking services to companies. On top of that, smaller player Moxie  just took a shot at Jive and its competitors by offering its enterprise social service for free.

With this fierce competition breathing down its neck, Jive has pressure to add new features. Its spring 2013 update fits the bill and offers two major updates:

• Purposeful Places: Jive offers up “deal rooms” for sales teams to work together on deals and “campaign rooms” for teams working on a structured campaign.
• Structured Outcomes: Jive takes conversations and converts them into trackable actions

Jive product marketing VP Nathan Rawlins told VentureBeat that these features are centered around lessening the amount of email workers need to deal with each day.

“In a big company, you’ve got a really big challenge with keeping track of information,” Rawlins said. “Email is a curse. Our focus is to help people communicate more effectively than they do on email.”

Jive has also announced that its services are now integrated with enterprise cloud storage hotshot Box. So Jive customers will be able to collaborate on Box documents from within Jive, and comments are synced across Jive and Box. Customers will also be able to upload content to Box from Jive and access Box docs from Jive mobile apps on iOS and Android.

The new Purposeful Places also have integration with Box and Salesforce data.

Top photo via Jive