Tibco plans to ship in November an upgrade to its Tibbr enterprise social networking suite that will open up the product's social activity to enterprise and commercial developers via an API.
The Enterprise Social Graph API and its toolset are designed to let developers build applications that can access Tibbr interactions involving employees,partners,files,business processes,events and activities,Tibco announced Wednesday.
Along with the API,Tibco is also prepping an applications marketplace and a partner ecosystem program that already includes vendors such as Box,Badgeville and Teamly.
Adding this in Tibbr's 4.0 version addresses an aspect that is key to all enterprise social networking suites,said Rob Koplowitz,a Forrester Research analyst.
"Ultimately,the offering with the best partner ecosystem for your organization will provide the greatest value.It is not reasonable to assume that any vendor can build everything you need,so partnerships are critical,"he said via email.
Furthermore,with the pieces in place to engage IT developers,Tibco now opens itself up to new opportunities for future enhancements to the Tibbr suite,he said.
Tibbr 4.0 will also feature an improved user profile that is more dynamic and contains richer content,pulling in data from users'discrete profiles such as those found in human resources systems and external social networks,and also featuring current work information,such as projects users are involved in and common areas they share with colleagues they interact with.
Tibbr,launched in January of last year,is used at more than 4,000 companies,including Macy's and KPMG.