As I have mentioned before nothing really dusts my consulting lampshade like hot new software. To this end, I experienced the equivalent of spring cleaning during a demo of the latest release of Jive’s Clearspace product. Thanks to their excellent BD folks, I had the chance to receive an advanced walk through of what I think should scare the living crap out of the citizens of SharePointistan. Quick rundown on some of the new features (I like) for internal collaboration…

• Reduced Fat, Low Sugar Project Management - It’s like project management without the learning curve and maintenance bloat of Primavera or MS Project Server, but with more collaboration and usability flavor than a spreadsheet. Or in other words, a project management solution that addresses the overwhelming majority of projects. (small, quick, executed via email, completely un-reusable). It should probably be noted that if you are thinking about building a bridge to nowhere or (anywhere for that matter), this probably won’t cut it. It is still a great addition to the suite though.
• Firing Over the Wall - Based on what I would guess was overwhelming user feedback, Clearspace provides the ability for internal creations to be shared externally with partners, contractors, relatives, martians, whatever. This is a great addition and provides business value and capabilities, encouraging long-term viability of the corporate line-graying mantra of our E2 founding fathers.
• DIY UI - Building upon some super hip drag and drop features in the 1.x product tree, the 2.0 release allows users to completely configure their dashboard-esque view into the information flow. Admin-driven global/default views still exist, but the addition of user-tailorable views serve to neck down the firehose of info an any large organization. Dissect the stream into custom views based on who, what, when, or where.

IMHO those are some of the bigger improvements, but you owe it to yourself to take a test drive. Other highlights include world-class social networking features (as expected) and Clearspace X (for external communities) has been dubbed Clearspace Community.

So…hot, hot heat from Jive. Think MS noticed? Did you notice?