NewsGator will add an enterprise RSS module to its Social Sites 2010 suite, which provides a variety of enterprise social networking and collaboration capabilities to Microsoft's SharePoint 2010.
The new module, called News Stream, is based on the stand-alone syndicated feed manager NewsGator Enterprise Server and is designed to work natively with SharePoint 2010, said Brian Kellner, vice president of products at NewsGator.
"We have tried hard to integrate the news reading experience into the Social Sites activity stream, so you can have articles interspersed in the stream," he said.
In fact, NewsGator, founded in 2004, initially focused specifically on RSS management, before broadening its scope to enterprise social networking via Social Sites.
While the NewsGator Enterprise Server is baked into Social Sites 2007, the company decided to adapt, expand and improve the enterprise RSS management functionality from the ground up for SharePoint 2010, Kellner said.
"You have a powerful RSS aggregator running on SharePoint 2010," he said.
Social Sites lets users create individual workplace profiles where they can list their areas of expertise, post status updates and receive activity stream notifications about actions of fellow co-workers.
Social Sites also provides functionality for collective management of idea generation, Twitter-like microblogging functionality and shared "community" pages for collaboration.
The suite also provides a variety of tools for IT departments to configure the software, establish and enforce user policies and monitor activity. Social Sites customers include Accenture, Fujitsu and the U.S. Air Force.
The News Stream module, which lets users tag, comment on and share feed items, will ship this month.