3 ms·

I work in a very large distributed enterprise so this list is a little off topic, but maybe it'll be useful for someone and maybe it will awaken a few ideas for

I work in a very large distributed enterprise so this list is a little off topic, but maybe it'll be useful for someone and maybe it will awaken a few ideas for how incredibly rich an opportunity the enterprise space is. I write code and help the rest of the team write code. We use Windows. These tools have been helpful. - Microsoft Lync (excellent product! Love it. Seriously it's only serious flaw is it needs Windows.) - Microsoft Outlook - Microsoft Sharepoint (meh, it's better than nothing) - Trello (useful for ad-hoc teams) - GitBlit ('cause outside the Firewall GitHub/BitBucket isn't allowed) - HP's Agile Manager (expensive, but a very good Agile/Scrum product) - Rally (before HP Agile Manager, a very good Scurm product) - Adobe Captivate (decent for screencasts; save time sharing your ideas inside your firewall) - TechSmith's Snagit (the best screen capture tool I've used; great for quick-and-dirty 'do this' email or doc) - IntelliJ IDEA (great IDE, we don't use it collaboratively or anything but it got into our Enterprise because individual DEVs could buy it at a reasonable price for themselves, then other DEVs wanted it and mgmt started signing POs... smart tactic). Sum it up. Lync is awesome (friends in smaller/not-so-MS-focused shops use Skype w/ success). A good asynchronous communication tool like Captivate/Snagit is useful. Some shared space to manage the work is necessary (Trello, HP Agile Manager, Rally, numerous other good products). I wish I had Campfire or something like it. edit: formatting

ytjohn 13y ago
I hate using Lync for group conversations, but I feel compelled to point out that it also works on Mac OSX. If you don't need the video/desktop sharing (which crawls after you get more than 8 people involved), you can use Pidgin/Adium to connect to the Lync server as well. If you're looking for a more stable multi-platform chat product with video support, Ignite's Openfire works great (and also has AD integration).
altano 13y ago
(disclaimer: I'm a MS employee blah blah) You'd be surprised how good many MS tools make remote development/communication. I don't work at MS HQ in Redmond (I'm in Boston) so my whole team does tons of work with people remotely every single day. For example, Lync on the Windows Phone is really great: you can join a meeting from your calendar/meeting reminder and instantly get video or a PowerPoint slide deck. I am frequently running late to a meeting in the morning so I just dial-in on my phone while I walk to work. Remote desktop performance is good enough to actually code on, which I never found to be the case with VNC (even TightVNC which was darn good and I was happy to rely on for everything but coding). This is huge for me since all of my development machines can be headless (no kb/mouse), for use remotely or in my office. Outlook makes starting an online meeting/conference call one click. I don't think Roundtable devices are for sale anymore, and they don't always work which is really annoying, but they work most of the time and make conference calls with video and lots of people really good. Screen sharing over Lync isn't super amazing (I don't even think you can go full screen) but it's so convenient I use it frequently. Presence is baked into everything really well, so if you're actually using MS for everything you will get presence everywhere. It's also pretty good about being more than just presence, so you get pictures/avatars, online status, location, out-of-office messages/status, quick links to start an email/IM/etc. As for non-MS software, I really like using Sublime Text as a code navigator. It has AMAZING performance when browsing code on a network share. I can load all the MS Office code from a remote development machine, over the network, into Sublime Text and the file-search works within seconds. I have no idea how it indexes all the files so quickly.
mercnet 13y ago
It drives me nuts that Lync does not display the convo history in the IM window like skype.

ytjohn 13y ago

I hate using Lync for group conversations, but I feel compelled to point out that it also works on Mac OSX. If you don't need the video/desktop sharing (which crawls after you get more than 8 people involved), you can use Pidgin/Adium to connect to the Lync server as well. If you're looking for a more stable multi-platform chat product with video support, Ignite's Openfire works great (and also has AD integration).

altano 13y ago

(disclaimer: I'm a MS employee blah blah) You'd be surprised how good many MS tools make remote development/communication. I don't work at MS HQ in Redmond (I'm in Boston) so my whole team does tons of work with people remotely every single day. For example, Lync on the Windows Phone is really great: you can join a meeting from your calendar/meeting reminder and instantly get video or a PowerPoint slide deck. I am frequently running late to a meeting in the morning so I just dial-in on my phone while I walk to work. Remote desktop performance is good enough to actually code on, which I never found to be the case with VNC (even TightVNC which was darn good and I was happy to rely on for everything but coding). This is huge for me since all of my development machines can be headless (no kb/mouse), for use remotely or in my office. Outlook makes starting an online meeting/conference call one click. I don't think Roundtable devices are for sale anymore, and they don't always work which is really annoying, but they work most of the time and make conference calls with video and lots of people really good. Screen sharing over Lync isn't super amazing (I don't even think you can go full screen) but it's so convenient I use it frequently. Presence is baked into everything really well, so if you're actually using MS for everything you will get presence everywhere. It's also pretty good about being more than just presence, so you get pictures/avatars, online status, location, out-of-office messages/status, quick links to start an email/IM/etc. As for non-MS software, I really like using Sublime Text as a code navigator. It has AMAZING performance when browsing code on a network share. I can load all the MS Office code from a remote development machine, over the network, into Sublime Text and the file-search works within seconds. I have no idea how it indexes all the files so quickly.

mercnet 13y ago

It drives me nuts that Lync does not display the convo history in the IM window like skype.