Extending Lotus Connections to Microsoft products

We are committed to bringing the value of social software to the enterprise and realize that work happens everywhere. With that goal in mind, the Lotus Connections team has been hard at work this year updating our plug-ins for the 2.5 release. Available now as a free download on the IBM Lotus Business Solutions Catalog are the following plug-ins for Microsoft SharePoint, Office and Windows.

The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint
The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft SharePoint is intended to enhance Microsoft SharePoint environments with additional social and collaborative functionality via interoperability with IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 services. The plug-in provides the following features:

• Lotus Connections Profiles search integrates with your Microsoft SharePoint directory, and you can easily add people to your Microsoft SharePoint group or site.
  
• Lotus Connections business card for getting contact and social networking information about users in your organization appears within your Microsoft SharePoint environment. From the business card, you can easily email, instant message, open their Blog, Bookmarks or full Profile.
  
• Lotus Connections tag cloud Web Part can be added to any Microsoft SharePoint site for finding content contributed to the social network. Clicking a tag, launches a query against all Lotus Connections services. From the results, easily explore the social data in Lotus Connections using the tags as a gateway to the Lotus Connections federated search.

IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows
The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Office and Microsoft Windows is intended for Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook) users, adding social networking features and functionality from Lotus Connections services, including Activities, Blogs and Profiles.

The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Office provides the following features:

• Add a Microsoft Office document to an Lotus Connections Activity.
  
• Create a To Do list for a Lotus Connections Activity.
  
• Post a Microsoft Word document to a Lotus Connections Blog.
  
• Search on a person's name to view their Lotus Connections profile or search for content in other Lotus Connections services such as Bookmarks, Communities, Blogs and Activities.
  
• Add Microsoft Outlook content, such as email, to an Lotus Connections Activity.
  
• Access Lotus Connections services such as Profiles, Bookmarks, Communities and Blogs from the Microsoft Outlook toolbar.
  
• View Lotus Connections business cards for people in your organization who send you e-mail.

The IBM Lotus Connections 2.5 Plug-in for Microsoft Windows allows you to add files from Windows Explorer to a Lotus Connections Activity.