Jive Software

Core Business and Function

The entity Jive Software is best defined by its namesake platform, the Jive Engage Platform, which serves as an Interactive Intranet. This platform is essentially a secure, private social networking environment tailored for business applications. Its primary function is to break down departmental and geographical silos by uniting the workforce, content, and disparate enterprise systems into one accessible, collaborative space. By creating a vibrant online community, Jive aims to drive employee engagement, boost productivity, streamline internal communication, and foster better knowledge discovery.

The platform's underlying architecture is designed to integrate with a multitude of existing enterprise tools, such as Microsoft Office 365, Google Workspace, Box, and SharePoint Online. This integration allows Jive to act as the collaboration layer, pulling information from formerly disconnected systems into a unified search and content stream.

Products and Services Portfolio

Jive Software's offerings were historically segmented based on the target audience???internal employees or external partners/customers???though the underlying technology was a single, robust platform.

1. Jive Interactive Intranets / Jive-n

This is the core internal collaboration solution focused on employee engagement and communication. It transforms the traditional intranet into a dynamic, social workplace. * Employee Collaboration: Provides dedicated team and project spaces for employees to create, share, and collaborate on content. * Knowledge Management: Centralizes documents, conversations, and presentations, making company knowledge easy to find and share through a sophisticated search function. * Corporate Communications: Allows for personalized news streams, company-wide announcements, and official blogs, ensuring employees stay informed and aligned with strategic objectives. * IT & HR Solutions: Includes features that support IT by providing a virtual help desk, enhancing visibility into internal processes, and facilitating new employee onboarding.

2. Jive Customer Communities / Jive-x

This solution is geared towards external audiences, providing a customer-facing or partner-facing online destination. * Customer Support and Self-Service: Provides a public forum where customers can find answers quickly, share their own knowledge, and receive support, thereby deflecting customer service calls and reducing costs. * Marketing Engagement: Creates a platform for the company to interact with customers and prospects in an authentic, personal way, turning visitors into brand advocates. * Partner Enablement: Offers a secure, private environment for businesses to collaborate with external partners, vendors, and suppliers.

3. Mobile and Real-Time Communication Solutions

Jive extended its platform capabilities through focused mobile and messaging applications to support the modern, remote workforce. * Jive Daily: A mobile news application designed to keep employees apprised of important company information and updates, allowing for consumption of corporate communications on the go. * Jive Chime: A secure, real-time enterprise messaging application for mobile devices, enabling effortless, secure communication and chat among colleagues.

Key Features and Capabilities

The functionality of the Jive platform is comprehensive, supporting a wide array of business processes:

• Social Networking Features: User profiles, status updates, activity streams, blogs, group forums, and the ability to join groups, mirroring modern social media in a controlled, enterprise setting.
• Content and Document Management: Allows for creating, editing, and sharing documents, with robust document versioning and feedback capabilities. It also offers content management and file sharing across integrated cloud services.
• Productivity and Project Management: Includes collaboration spaces, task management, event management, and integration with third-party apps to facilitate project execution and workflow.
• Enterprise Search: An advanced search function is a cornerstone of the platform, designed to efficiently pull relevant information from all integrated and native systems into one clear list of results, regardless of where the content originated.
• Analytics and Reporting: Built-in metrics and analytics tools give administrators visibility into how the platform is being used, highlighting engagement trends and informing decisions about improving internal communications.

Jive Software???s primary focus was on delivering a unified experience to solve fragmentation, allowing employees to connect, engage, and do their best work together in a transparent and efficient environment. The company's platform was sold on a subscription basis to hundreds of enterprise customers globally. Although the company was acquired by Wave Systems Corp (Aurea Software) in 2017 and later its technology was integrated into a new product line with new Jive licenses discontinued as a standalone product, the technology remains a significant example of a pioneer in the enterprise collaboration space.