Google Wave - Collaboration tool of the future

At Novembers Enterprise 2.0 Conference in San Francisco, I have learnt that business software vendors, SAP, Novell, and ThoughtWorks have begun building on the wave platform. Google have promised an app store where these vendor plugins can be purchased by businesses, and integrated fully into Google Wave.

Not only is Google Wave a web-based communication tool, but it is also a platform. Wave can be extended through APIs and Protocol, and other programs can converse with Wave servers. Its real time communication is what enables effective online collaboration.

The guys at Google have done a pretty good job on explaining it, so if you are still a little unsure about what Wave does please check out their video.



The real aim here by Google is to deliver this collaboration architecture so that anyone can build upon it. Novell have designed a new enterprise product called Pulse around the Wave platform. It is due to be released by the middle of 2010. It gives enterprise a more secure version of Wave, with locks for group and profile visibility and defined user roles.

SAP are not far behind either. They have designed a Wave gadget called Gravity. Gravity lets members of a wave use the business process modeling functionality of SAP Business Process Management in near-real time. Similar to the SAPs Gravity, ThoughtWorks Mingle project management software can also be embedded within a Wave.

Both videos below are fantastic and show how easy it is to integrate each of the software's functionality into Wave. I believe this is a much better use of Wave than the Novell approach. If a user has already become familiar with Wave, Gravity and Mingle will be a simple extension of knowledge. Pulse on the other hand, even with the GUI similarities seems like a whole new system.

Gravity by SAP



Mingle by ThoughtWorks