VMware Introduces the Socialcast(R) Integration Engine to Enable Deep Social Integrations That Connect People, Apps, Systems and Data to Drive Business Value

PALO ALTO, CA--(Marketwire - Sep 19, 2012) - VMware, Inc. (NYSE: VMW), the global leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure, today announced the availability of the Socialcast® Integration Engine™, an advanced set of integration capabilities to enable people and systems to connect to their enterprise network and use social technology to drive business results. The Socialcast Integration Engine combines Socialcast Reach® Version 3, the new Community App Manager and a rich set of developer APIs to securely enable systems to become actors in the activity stream, extending the benefits of social to apps and machines to drive better and more efficient business decisions.

"Most people are looking at enterprise social adoption upside-down," said Chuck Dietrich, VP and general manager of social applications, VMware. "The primary goal of adding social to your enterprise is to drive business value, which starts with connecting people and should quickly extend to enhancing your mission-critical business processes. This means social can't be a parallel process, to realize the full value of enterprise social it needs to permeate the organization and integrate with key systems where business information lives."

With the Socialcast Integration Engine, people and systems can now connect using a natural and user-friendly interface that brings the benefits of social collaboration to business systems like CRM, inventory management and HR applications. By enabling systems in the social stream, highly relevant and timely information is shared and can be acted upon by both employees and other systems, taking advantage of how social is changing the business communications paradigm.

The Importance of Custom Apps In The Enterprise

Enterprise organizations have invested in developing custom applications. According to Gartner, Inc, 79 percent of enterprise companies have custom built applications as part of their application portfolio. For 37 percent of these companies custom developed applications make up most or all of their applications.*

Recognizing the importance of custom developed software in the enterprise, the Socialcast Integration Engine is designed to socially enable integrations with custom build apps. By providing an extensible platform to develop secure, powerful apps, Socialcast is able to help enterprise companies add a social layer across their application portfolio without being limited to point solutions with packaged software products. This opens up the potential to add social to all the key business workflows and drive more productivity and better business outcomes.

Socialcast Integration Engine

Reach Version 3:
Socialcast Reach features an intuitive setup wizard to walk users through setting up extensions to enable integrations with any business system that accepts a HTML/Javascript snippet like SharePoint, CRM, ERP, PLM, HCM, Intranets and wikis. Data is updated between Socialcast and the business system for real-time information sharing. Today, we're introducing Reach Version 3, which adds:

• New extension types such as a customizable community trend extension, social recognition tool and new embeddable buttons
• Deeper, richer integrations that dynamically pull data from their host page to intelligently display content
• Improved user experience around sharing and the ability to share into a specific Socialcast group

Community App Manager
The Community App Manager gives developers an efficient and secure way to build apps on the Socialcast platform and enables IT to securely manage these apps with control over access, publishing and promotion of apps built for their community. For developers and IT departments, the Community App Manager includes:

• The latest OAuth 2.0 security protocol to enable apps to securely pass data between the developer's app and the Socialcast platform.
• Fine-grain control for IT to manage access to apps by individual users or app.
• An internal app store to promote custom built apps to the community and drive usage of individual apps.

Socialcast REST API
The robust REST API available in Socialcast provides programmatic access to the same, full functionality available via a community's Socialcast website, enabling companies to create even deeper social integrations with business systems, including custom developed business systems. 

The Socialcast Integration Engine is available immediately and accessible via Socialcast's Free communities for up to 50 users. To get started with a larger community, contact Socialcast sales at sales@socialcast.com.

*"ITScore for Application Organizations: Maturity Assessment Trends Through," Gartner, Inc, April 18 2012, Bill Swanton

About VMware
VMware is the leader in virtualization and cloud infrastructure solutions that enable businesses to thrive in the Cloud Era. Customers rely on VMware to help them transform the way they build, deliver and consume Information Technology resources in a manner that is evolutionary and based on their specific needs. With 2011 revenues of $3.77 billion, VMware has more than 400,000 customers and 55,000 partners. The company is headquartered in Silicon Valley with offices throughout the world and can be found online at www.vmware.com.

VMware, Socialcast, Socialcast Reach and Socialcast Integration Engine are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.