Missed the live webinar? Listen to Jill Hannemann and special guest Maximo Castagno, Product Lead with Beezy, as they discuss empowering social in SharePoint 2013. See how to turn SharePoint into a social collaboration tool that helps employees get work done faster and improves engagement.
QUESTION: Should there be “corporate” profiles so that social newsfeed conversations can be authored by a team or group (e.g. Comms)?
ANSWER: Yes, this is possible today in Beezy by creating an Active Directory profile for each of these corporate profiles. However we think that social communication is about real faces. About people that are accountable for their job. This is a trend that emerged in the consumer world (Facebook or LinkedIn) and is being translated into the corporate workplace. Even if some news or announcements come from the Comm department people appreciate when there is a real person authoring it. Each company needs to evolve at its own pace, but again: yes, this is today possible with Beezy.
QUESTION: Please give a few specific examples of how SharePoint social OOTB does not render well to mobile devices.
ANSWER: Well I could give a few examples of non-satisfactory user experience when reaching SharePoint through a mobile device. But in general we see that any browser activity today is not enough in terms of mobile user experience. Users today clearly prefer native mobile apps and this is the kind of user experience that Beezy offers to your employees. You can see an example of our apps in action here. More mobile news coming in the next few days, so stay tuned!
QUESTION: Does “Add to calendar” mean add it to my Outlook calendar?
ANSWER: Yes. It assumes that Outlook is your default email client.
QUESTION: Thank you for putting this on. I am very interested to know more about social enhancements on-premises given that MS is not enhancing this and is focused on cloud / Yammer.
ANSWER: You can see all the enhancements that Beezy brings to SharePoint on our website. Make sure you check out the videos since they are very straightforward. You can also subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated.
QUESTION: Please provide a link to a features matrix on your website so I can get more details of how the features compare to SP OOTB and Yammer or Newsgator.
ANSWER: This is information that we don’t publish on our website but if you request a demo in we can send you in a PDF format.
QUESTION: What is Beezy and what does it do (other than that it is on-premise)?
ANSWER: Beezy is a social add-in for SharePoint.
- First: It brings advanced social features (like Microblog, Q&A, Praises, Ideas, Polls, etc.)
- Second: it leverages SharePoint components (documents, calendars, lists, etc.)
- Third: It offers all with an unmatched user experience
- Beezy’s three key objectives: Offer a consumer-like user experience, Filter SharePoint’s complexity, Allow a high level of customization.
QUESTION: What about a Private Cloud?
ANSWER: We are serving some clients in their private clouds. Some of our partners also offer Beezy from their private cloud. Since this can quickly become a technical discussion, I would suggest to request a demo here mentioning that you foresee this scenario. We’ll have then the right technical people from our side attending it.
QUESTION: How many customers do you have?
ANSWER: Beezy has today more than 50 clients from all around the world ranging form 1,000 to 120,000 employees in a wide variety of sectors that include finance, technology, telecommunications, pharmaceutical, energy and government. We cannot disclose all of them but you can read a case study about Vodafone in our website and also see the Intranet of one of our clients ONO awarded as one of the 10 best Intranets in 2013.
QUESTION: What is the price?
ANSWER: Our price model is based with a per-user-license. Beezy offer subscription licenses (a monthly fee per user) and perpetual licenses (a one-time fee per user to acquire the everlasting usage rights of Beezy) plus an annual maintenance and support fee. Prices depend on the number of users and whether you are using SharePoint 2010, 2013 or both. You can request a quote with this information and we will quickly come back to you with a tailored offer.
QUESTION: Can you share that Gartner URL?
ANSWER: Certainly. Here you go.
QUESTION: How well does SharePoint social support Macintosh users in the enterprise?
ANSWER: Today Mac users are not a critical problem anymore for SharePoint users. Beezy matches the same level of compatibility that SharePoint 2010 or 2013 offers.
QUESTION: It’s not a cloud-based solution, right?
ANSWER: Correct, it is not a cloud-based solution. However we support a private cloud model.
QUESTION: What is about the price? Is it by the number of employees? Or by some modules?
ANSWER: Beezy doesn´t have “modules”. Beezy is licensed as one complete solution.
Our price model is based with a per-user-license. Beezy offer subscription licenses (a monthly fee per user) and perpetual licenses (a one-time fee per user to acquire the everlasting usage rights of Beezy) plus an annual maintenance and support fee. Prices depend on the number of users and whether you are using SharePoint 2010, 2013 or both. You can request a quote with this information and we will quickly come back to you with a tailored offer.
QUESTION: Does Beezy is able to help intranet with more than 50 000 employees? More than 100,000?
ANSWER: Yes. Beezy is today providing the social capabilities in clients with more than 100,000 employees. Some have been with us for almost two years now and are experience high levels of adoption. You can read a case study about Vodafone in our website.
QUESTION: Is Vodafone intranet based on SharePoint 2013? Or earlier version?
ANSWER: Beezy today is deployed in Vodafone mainly in 2010 but also powering a limited roll out of SharePoint 2013 that will progressively be extended according to their roadmap.
QUESTION: Does Beezy deploy to Office 365 intranets and/or public sites?
ANSWER: Beezy as a product needs to be installed in an on-premises SharePoint server. But it provides a full REST API that can be leveraged and used from Office 365 or a Public site. We are seeing many clients doing this since hybrids scenarios are more and more frequent nowadays.
QUESTION: I’m interested in Knowledge Capture and Knowledgebase applications built upon SharePoint and utilizing Beezy social enhancements. Most enterprise social “discussions” are unstructured, annotated with as much junk as useful knowledge, and temporal (good ideas are buried in threads). How can I initiate a discussion about a product description, FAQ entry, KB Article, etc.?
ANSWER: We are about to launch a new feature called Knowledge Center that is tackling exactly this problem of combining informal sharing with formal structured knowledge record. You can request a demo here https://www.beezy.net/request-demo/ and I will be happy to explain what you can already do today and what is coming in the next month release. This is a fascinating topic!
QUESTION: I understand the Windows 8 device alignment with MS partner managers, but can I assume proper IOS and Android?
ANSWER: Yes. We’ve demoed the Windows mobile experience for convenience purposes in our webinar but the same level of experience is today possible in iOS (iPhone and iPad) apps and also in an Android Phone. The Android tablet is pending because of marginal market demand but it is our short-term roadmap.
QUESTION: Is there any integration of Office Web Apps into the news feed (similar to your view of Slideshare)?
ANSWER: Yes! I couldn’t demo it but is possible today when you mouse over a document name you see the OfficeWebApp card with a preview. Our heavy users are loving it.
QUESTION: Is there dependency on Lync? If we don’t use Lync will the apps work?
ANSWER: No. There is no dependency. Beezy works fine without it. You just don’t get the presence indicator.
QUESTION: What kind of apps are they/deployment wise? SharePoint hosted or provider hosted?
ANSWER: The SharePoint app model is still not mature enough to support a robust product like Beezy. However we are developing some modules in both hosted and provider hosted apps. Since this topic is a technical discussion I would suggest you to request a demo here mentioning that you are interested in it. We’ll have then the right technical people form our side attending it.
QUESTION: Do you know success cases in hard industries (construction, engineering, etc.)?
ANSWER: We have a very happy client in the Oil & Gas industry in Houston. If you get in contact with us here we can provide you non-confidential information. We could even put you in direct contact with some of our current clients.
QUESTION: Is Beezy available in Spanish?
ANSWER: Yes
If you have any questions or need more information, please contact Jill Hannemann with Portal Solutions at [email protected].
