NewsGator is in 'da houseenterprise. I had a 45-minute demo and chat with Sandy Hamilton, executive vice president of sales and marketing for NewsGator. The focus of the discussion was on NewsGator Enterprise Server (NGES), which was just announced on PR channels and the NewsGator Daily blog.

I've always thought of NewsGator as just another newsreader host. Some big players in the newsreader space are Bloglines (which I use for personal newsreading), NewsGator, and FeedDemon (acquired by NewsGator).

But which of the companies provide a solution that can be used behind a firewall? Which of the companies can sync reader status (using different products) across mobile, email, and web-based intranet?

Here the list seems short: NewsGator. Anyone else want to weigh in?

So what types of use-cases apply to using a newsreader in an enterprise, let's call it a business-class application for content aggregation. In an enterprise environment, here are some cases that are gaining the most momentum:

• RSS feeds and updates from internal CRM and ERP systems (e.g., for sales reporting data)
• Internal document and content publication
• Assimilation of public RSS & dynamic RSS query/alerts for market intelligence
• Potential mix of public RSS and private RSS across multiple environments (e.g., since the NewsGator product interfaces with Active Directory and the Microsoft Exchange stack - View image of architecture)

And since I spend a good portion of my time working the enterprise content management side of the house with companies, I asked for litmus test on what I should look for in target companies for the NewsGator Enterprise Server. What's the litmus test? Don't quote me on the exact numbers, but here's the test:

• 200+ users
• Microsoft platform house
• Usage of RSS is heavy -> people care about what's being said in the market or internally

IT management definitely gets involved with the NewsGator product because of the integration aspects. That said, my take is that IT management should proactively work with the business leaders (e.g., sales and marketing executives) to determine if the NewsGator solution can increase effectiveness and productivity. I did not have a chance to dissect ROI with Sandy as we ran out of time, but there definitely seems to be potential there. Customers of NewsGator include the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Department of State, George Washington University, Florida Atlantic University, Apollo Group, Walt Disney Company, Fidelity, Nortel, and Microsoft.

Steve Shu