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IT pros will often tell you that a lot of consumer technology isn't ready for the enterprise. It's not secure, it's not priced correctly, it can't be administered, yada yada. That doesn't stop businesspeople from using consumer tools in their jobs, though. It just stops the people who make the tools from profiting from their use.

Where there are IT administrators, there are budgets, and where there are budgets, there's market opportunity. And I'm not surprised that two very solid personal productivity tools are getting business versions this week and business models to match.

Xobni provides a heads-up display for e-mail.

(Credit: Xobni)

The Outlook add-on maker Xobni on Monday released Xobni Enterprise, a new version of the product with links into traditional business data sources. While the free and Plus levels of Xobni will search Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn to give users more information about the people who are e-mailing them, the enterprise version will also tap into Salesforce.com, Sharepoint, and corporate directory services. It can also be extended to work with proprietary business apps. This could be pretty cool: users will be able to see latest internal database info from people they're communicating with them, automatically when they're doing the communicating.

And to help IT teams keep their users in line with whatever (ridiculous and restrictive) policies their companies have on employee access to outside data, Enterprise Xobni admins can also turn off access to the app's Twitter features and other parts of the product.

Admins, of course, can provision employees' computers for access to Xobni data from a central console.

Xobni Enterprise starts at $30 a user a year, with prices going down with volume or up for access to enterprise data sources.

The Business edition of SugarSync lets admins pool storage and control access.

(Credit: SugarSync)

On Tuesday, the cloud file synchronization product SugarSync gets a business version design for teams. The Business version of the product features pooled storage and central IT control. Customers pay for each user ($10 a month) and for the storage they want, in 100GB increments. Admins have access to all this storage, too. If an employee leaves the company, they can disable access, and then sign on as that person, and recover data. There's no "remote wipe" feature to remove company data from an employee's computer, but CEO Laura Yecies told me she's thinking about it.

A useful feature lets users send files to other people via the SugarSync service, instead of through e-mail. This could compete with the useful, but single-purpose and somewhat expensive product, YouSendIt, except that SugarSync's single-file transfer function can't password-protect files.

In the cloud sync category, SugarSync lagged its major competitor Dropbox in releasing of a free, limited version of the service. There's one now, and Yecies says, "We're finding that free is a good business." She bases this on "conversion" to the paid product, which she says is 5 percent to 10 percent, depending on the offers presented to users.

I use and pay for my own SugarSync account and highly recommend the service. Compared with geek favorite service Dropbox, it's got more flexible configuration options and better mobile device support. The business version freaks me out, personally--I don't want any IT manager getting access to files my hard drive--but this sounds like a good product for the security-conscious IT exec who wants to provide a team file-sharing product along with off-site backup to users.

Xobni streams contacts' tweets.

(Credit: Xobni)

Microsoft Outlook search extension Xobni (Windows) gets a new extension of its own this week: Twitter.

Best known for speedily hunting down e-mail contacts and conversations in Microsoft Outlook, Xobni also has a social networking aspect. It includes photos courtesy of Facebook, phone numbers via Skype, Yahoo Mail, LinkedIn profile information, corporate information from Hoover's, and now, a Twitter stream.

Click on the Twitter icon in the contact view to see a list of recent tweets. Icons below get you started on a reply, retweet, or new post. You can also follow, unfollow, and view the person's profile. Note that tweets may not be available for every Xobni contact. If they're not public and you're not an approved follower, you won't see much in the updates stream.

Associating a Twitter account with a contact isn't automatic. For each contact whose account you want to see, Xobni will trigger a search for matches. It will remember associations once you've approved them, making this a one-time process. You can also manually link a name to the contact you're viewing. We wish the Twitter extension were as smoothly integrated as the Facebook extension, which takes no legwork at all.

But if you do take the time to set up Twitter for some contacts, you'll be rewarded with a more intimate portrait of people in your casual and business circles. Instead of just a name, you might also see a face, a Skype number, and, with Twitter, a sense of your contact's personality and interests. Even if you're not attempting to humanize people you've never met in real life, Xobni's Twitter integration can also be a convenience tool that lets you post a tweet without having to close or hide Outlook.

While Twitter in Xobni covers the major bases, it won't replace dedicated desktop apps for heavy-duty tweeters. For that, see our roundup of five desktop Twitter helpers.

The latest update--Xobni 1.8.3 build 8559--also includes back-end adjustments to improve search speed, Windows 7 compatibility, and a handful of other tweaks and big fixes.

A few months ago, CNET Editor Rafe Needleman lauded Xobni, an e-mail search plug-in for Outlook, but wondered where the money would come from to keep the company afloat. On Tuesday night, Xobni responded with a version update, Xobni 1.8, and the introduction of a new premium service, Xobni Plus.

The free version of Xobni 1.8 features a slightly revamped interface that loads faster thanks to a switch from a slightly draggy custom UI (built using C#) to HTML rendering. More important to most users, Xobni's sidebar has gotten richer on the whole, searching the subjects of e-mail attachments in addition to contacts and messages, and stuffing more details into the pop-up box you see after hovering over an item. Xobni now also displays thumbnails of Facebook images in the search results in addition to the profile screen--but you'll only see these for contacts who have enabled third-party extensions in their privacy settings.

You also can't fail to notice that a new Google search bar at the bottom of the sidebar replicates the contents you type into Xobni's search. If you launch Google's search, Xobni will open the results in a new browser tab. You can hide the feature in Options to reclaim more screen space.

Microsoft Outlook, by Xobni Plus--screenshots

These new features, while nifty additions for regular Xobni users, are dwarfed by those introduced in Xobni Plus. The one-time fee of $29.95 for one computer (and $9.95 for each additional) gets you search access to appointments and your Outlook task list. It also opens up the search bar to let you search phrases in quotes or type in Boolean search terms. A new Advanced button flanking the search bar lets Plus users build granular searches for contacts and messages, including flagging e-mails with attachments. This Advanced button is also visible in the free version as a marketing tool, but won't be operational.

Searching the full text in a conversation is another useful, often-requested feature that takes life in Xobni Plus. (The free version will let you see conversations and filter e-mails by subject, but does not provide a filter for full-text search.) Another filter helps you wade through bulky e-mail threads by stripping out all but the direct messages. Then there's this subtle, but terrific, help: Xobni Plus adds its index of incoming and outgoing e-mail addresses to the To field of every message you compose. Even if Outlook hasn't captured the sender's info, you'll be able to quickly e-mail them without hunting through your in-box for their address.

Advanced search and the thumbnail search result are two additions to Xobni Plus.

(Credit: CNET/Screenshot by Jessica Dolcourt)

Xobni continues to handily and speedily find messages and contacts. Searches still aren't instantaneous, especially if you're working from a bloated in-box, but they're zippier than Outlook's default. Our greatest complaint is that Outlook's program window must be enlarged for you to see many of these new features. Since the profile window in Xobni's sidebar doesn't give you a scroll bar, people who work with Outlook condensed into a small window may miss the extra features until they expand the application interface.

Xobni 1.8 is free for use, but will have some features, like Advanced Search, disabled. You can use Xobni Plus free for 14 days. Get started by activating Xobni Plus from the sidebar (you can't miss the prompts) and scrolling to the bottom of the sign-up page.

After making a splash helping Windows users quickly search for conversations and contacts in their endless Outlook in-boxes with Xobni, the e-mail organizer company shared its plan on Monday to make the same service available for BlackBerry.

Xobni wouldn't elaborate on any program details, like how exactly it will look and work on the BlackBerry, but they did say that it will involve integration with the phone's address book.

"The app will be focused on contact and relationship management and bring a lot of the relationship features people like from Xobni in Outlook to the BlackBerry," added Xobni's co-founder, Matt Brezina.

If I were to take a stab at what's in store, I'd guess that Xobni's BlackBerry debut will include the Skype, Facebook, LinkedIn, and statistics information found in Xobni for Windows. The emphasis on relationship management rather than e-mail organization and search hints that shortcutting to e-mail messages from your BlackBerry contact list isn't an immediate part of Xobni's mobile plan--but we just don't know.

What we do know is that Xobni's BlackBerry version is expected to be available sometime in the summer. It won't be tied to corporate policies, and the download will be available through BlackBerry App World. It's not yet clear if the app will be compatible with phones whose operating systems predate version 4.2 of the BlackBerry device software.

Until more details trickle out, you can sign up in advance here.

Xobni, the Outlook e-mail helper launched at the TechCrunch 40 conference in 2007, is finally leaving its official beta phase. It's getting some needed updates in the 1.0 release, although no major new features. Xobni is also announcing that it's closed its B round of funding.

The software updates for Xobni are all in the performance and compatibility areas. The product is now faster, co-founder Matt Brezina told me. In other words, it should work acceptably quickly for users with large e-mail installations, such as Xobni investor Josh Kopelman. Passing "The Kopelman Experiment," Brezina says, was a key milestone during development.

The product now has caching and other performance tweaks so it doesn't drag Outlook performance down during message switching, and it has a feature that allows it to be installed but not automatically run at Outlook start-up; users can turn on Xobni when they want it, or turn it off to free up resources.

Download Xobni here.

It's also supposed to be more compatible with key products that interact with Outlook, such as Microsoft's Dynamic CRM and Outlook Business Contact Manager, and the enterprise versions of McAfee virus scanner, version 8.5 and up (I'm sad to report it doesn't work with version 8.0, which is what I have installed on my laptop).

"We truly needed this beta period," Brezina said as he ran down the tweaks the team made with the product. Installed software, he reminded me, is much harder to develop than Web apps, since the compatibility testing is so much more complex.

Cisco is in
The company has also closed a $10.5 million second round of venture funding, led by Cisco ($5 million) (previous story), with participation of the Blackberry Partner Fund ($3.2 million) and all the previous investors.

Cisco's participation in the Xobni project is telling, and hopefully will help push Xobni beyond the world of just Microsoft e-mail and toward creating products for other platforms. Brezina told me the company's vision is to diversify its products but keep a focus on helping people index personal (as oppose to the world's) information.

Xobni "hasn't made a penny yet," Brezina said, but it will be announcing a premium product this summer, as well as paid online services. Brezina would not elaborate on these plans.

Read previous Xobni coverage.

Outlook plug-in maker Xobni has raised a $7 million series B round of funding led by Cisco. Previous investors from the series A funding (about $4.1 million) also participated in this round.

Xobni is an e-mail add-on that analyzes your in-box to give you context around the people you communicate with. Recent updates also correlate against social sites like LinkedIn to provide even more information on people.

A company spokesperson told me that the funds will be used to add features and stability to the application, and to knock out a few remaining bugs that prevent some users (like me) from using the Xobni add-on. At the same time, the funds will help the company weather the tough economy. The company blog discusses a "focus on our premium business, and address the growing interest from our enterprise customer base," which meshes with Cisco's business model.

More stories about Xobni

The popular Outlook extension Xobni (download) is getting hooks into additional data sources. The service, which to date has given users historial detail about the people they communicate with in e-mail, is now extending its lookup to more social networks and other data sources.

Now, when a user is viewing a person's record, in addition to showing the user the Outlook history, it will also look up communications with that person on Yahoo Mail, and let you connect with them on Skype.

More interesting, I think, is its expanding hooks into social networks: In addition to its previous LinkedIn support, it will now troll through Facebook and return information about a highlighted user, such as their recent status message and picture.

The product can also look up the company the contact is affiliated with on Hoovers, and display that info in your sidebar.

Although Xobni now grabs data from more sources, it is still only a tool for users of Outlook. I've heard that support for Web e-mail (Google and Yahoo) is coming.

Read previous Xobni coverage.

Xobni will now look up data on your contacts' employers.

It will also give you their e-mail history from Yahoo Mail as well as Outlook.

Xobni gives you a useful scorecard for each person who e-mails you. (Click for full image.)

Update: Charlie Cooper and I discuss Xobni in today's News.com podcast.

The e-mail helper app Xobni exits its private beta period Monday morning. Compared with the previous version of the app I tried (see "Handy e-mail helper"), Xobni is now faster and more stable, and thus more useful.

A refresher: Xobni integrates into your Outlook installation and shows you more about your e-mails than Outlook can itself. For each person who sends you e-mail, it shows you who else they communicate with a lot (their de facto social networks), and it finds their phone number from inside their e-mails. It also shows you all conversation threads you've participated in with the person, and all the attachments they've sent you. You can drill into message threads (very useful), and it has a snappy e-mail search engine built in (nice, but redundant).

Unlike many other Outlook add-ons that I've tried, this one seems to add its functionality without dragging down Outlook's performance, or worse, crashing it. It is useful and it doesn't get in the way. There's no reason not to try it. And it's free.

Xobni is neat bit of programming, and Microsoft likes it so much it tried to buy the company. But Xobni walked away from the deal, CEO Jeff Bonforte told me. (Microsoft can't seem to buy anything these days.) At first I thought that was a bad decision, since Xobni is hardly a must-have product. It improves Outlook a bit, sure. But the company is going to need more than this handy little plug-in to become a real business. Microsoft was an easy exit. Why didn't Xobni go for it?

Xobni also extracts e-mail threads. (Click to enlarge.)

Here's what Xobni has up its sleeve: Xobni the app runs on Xobni the platform. This platform has hooks deep into Outlook. The platform is what enables Xobni to graft a viewing pane into Outlook, something other plug-ins can't do. It can also integrate into Outlook's default search bar (it doesn't, yet). The platform is what gives Xobni access to all the message data that it uses without bogging down the Outlook host app.

Xobni plans to do two interesting things with the platform: first, write hooks into other e-mail apps (like Yahoo Mail and Gmail), and second, make the platform available to other vendors. So, for example, if Salesforce.com wants to write a plug-in that tightly integrates its CRM data into Outlook or whatever e-mail app its customers are using, Xobni's toolkit could make that work. Salesforce presumably would make money from such a feature, which Xobni would profit from as well.

It turns out that Xobni is not really an Outlook plug-in company. Rather, it's a company that makes a platform to abstract the difficult-to-write-for-Outlook, as well as other less-broken e-mail services, and that allows the creation of new products that integrate e-mail data with other apps. That's good, since the business of painting incremental features onto Outlook is a bit shallow. The fundamental platform business is less visible to consumers, but it might actually make some money.

Sorting out the overload of e-mail is one of the mostly unsolved problems of computing. The first step is analyzing your in-box, which is what Google developer Mihai Parparita has done with Mail Trends, a program that lets users analyze and visualize their inbox.

Mail Trends, which is similar to Google Reader Trends, extracts data from IMAP servers and displays statistics such as distribution of messages by year, month, day, day of week, and time of day; distribution by message size; a breakdown of top senders, recipients, and mailing lists; distribution of senders, recipients, and mailing lists over time; and distribution of thread lengths and the lists and people that result in the longest threads.

An example of Mail Trends output running a small portion of the Enron Email Dataset, a corpus of about 500,000 messages that was made available by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission during its investigation of the Enron.

(Credit: Google)

Parparita notes that Mail Trends is at an early stage of development. It currently lacks support for non-Gmail servers and the capability to split out sent and starred e-mail. You can follow progress on the project on this Mail Trends page.

What's further missing is turning the analysis into proactive in-box management, a software agent that automatically sorts your in-box, makes calendar appointments, and routes messages.

Startup Xobni ("inbox" spelled backwards) is attempting to manage e-mail overload for Microsoft Outlook users. It includes some data analysis, such as how users and their contacts use e-mail, as well as some more proactive features. For example, Xobni shows recent e-mail conversations and files exchanged with a contact, and a list of related contacts. It also predicts when you would be most likely to get a response from a contact.

Microsoft Research has been working for years to come up with what it calls "e-mail triage." Apparently, Microsoft hasn't been able to turn the research into product. TechCrunch has suggested that Microsoft is in negotiations to acquire Xobni.

While Mail Trends is interesting to look at, Mail Triage would be much more useful. With all those engineers at Google devoting 20 percent of their time to personal projects, solving the Mail Triage problem would be a good way to get promoted and improve Gmail.