Social networking site LinkedIn has tied up with IBM's Lotus to
build social networking capabilities into Lotus products.
The companies plan to work together to provide Lotus users,
including Lotus Notes users with new ways to interact with their
professional network. Professionals will be able to safely and
efficiently start web meetings, add business context to e-mail
senders, and learn more about collaborators, colleagues, potential
partners and prospects through integrated LinkedIn profiles, Lotus
and LinkedIn said.
Speaking at
Lotusphere 2009 today, Bob Picciano, general manager of Lotus
Software at IBM, said, "The Lotus partnership with LinkedIn will
allow us to collectively provide direct, easy and fast access to
both the information and the collaborative services people need to
drive better business outcomes."
The two companies said the integration will help users to
monitor their broader professional network within Notes, via a feed
of Network Updates from LinkedIn. Users will also be able to look
up the LinkedIn profiles of e-mail senders or other Lotus Notes
contacts and utilise LinkedIn people search without leaving the
inbox they use all day, according to LinkedIn.
The Lotus announcement is the latest in a series of links
LinkedIn built to extend social networking into business
applications. It has also been developing a platform for business
applications to use social networking. One such example is the
Huddle collaborative application.