IBM Connections is social software for business. It empowers business professionals to develop, nurture, and remain in contact with a network of their colleagues; respond quickly to business opportunities by calling upon the expertise in their network; and discuss and refine new creative ideas with communities of coworkers, partners, and customers.

IBM Connections software delivers the following capabilities :

• Communities : Create, find, join, and work with communities of people.
• Files : A file-sharing service.
• Wikis : You and your teams can collaboratively edit content.
• Profiles : Quickly find the people and expertise you need.
• Blogs : Present your ideas in a Weblog and get feedback from others.
• Bookmarks : Save, organize, and share bookmarks using social bookmarking.
• Activities : Gather the e-mails, IM chats, documents, messages, and other information that you need to accomplish a business objective.
• Home page : Remain informed of social data updates from across the IBM Connections services
• Forums : Provide a convenient way to create an on-line discussion board where people can ask questions, share their experiences, and discuss topics of common interest.
• Social Analytics : Widgets are available in the Home Page, Communities, and Profiles and can help you to:

Benefits :

• Increased efficiency and effectiveness of business processes by using existing skills discovered through your professional network.
• Decisions can be made with confidence knowing they were vetted by experts across the organization and reflect past experience.
• Innovative products and services can be developed using the experiences and knowledge of communities of employees, partners, and customers.
• Sustainable competitive advantage can be created by leveraging innovation from across your value chain and building stronger relationships.
• Exchange ideas with, and benefit from the expertise of other people using Forums and Blogs.
• Expand your professional network through social analytics based recommendations for people to connect with, and communities to join.