SAN FRANCISCO, CA--(Marketwire - May 3, 2012) - Socialcast by VMware today announced a joint integration of Socialcast's [ enterprise social network ] with Lithium's social customer suite, which can provide new levels of employee collaboration driven by direct customer engagement. Announced at the annual [ Lithium Network Conference (LiNC) 2012 ], the integration is expected to be available to Lithium customers by the third quarter of 2012.

Socialcast's rich set of APIs and [ Reach integration platform ], conversations and customer interactions will be used in Lithium-powered communities, and will be able to be brought inside the Socialcast network so customer ideas and feedback can be discussed and refined. As part of a social enterprise platform, Socialcast enables real-time, in-context conversations and collaboration tools from enterprise applications into the activity stream, providing employees access to the most relevant information regardless of location, and helping companies realize even greater value from their Lithium communities.

"While we see social technologies changing the way business is done, there's a significant difference between internal and external networks," said Tim Young, vice president, Social Enterprise, VMware. "By collaborating with Lithium, we're able to intelligently integrate two best-of-breed solutions to provide a better connection between external communities and internal networks. Ultimately companies will be able to make better decisions based on this new way of working."

"The balance of power has shifted in consumers' favor, and Lithium is always looking for ways to transform business for success in this new reality," said Rob Tarkoff, president and chief executive officer, Lithium. "Integrating with Socialcast gives our customers the ability to connect customer insight with internal expertise and make business decisions faster, with better information pulled from across the organization."

The integration combines Lithium's external social graph, which provides access to Twitter, Facebook and other customer communities, with the Socialcast internal social graph of employee groups and enterprise applications in a way that can dramatically advance the social enterprise and further define the future of work. Companies can become empowered to deliver an improved customer experience by unifying the insights, feedback and market influences captured by external communities with the internal data, discussion and expertise held within internal social networks.

About Socialcast:
Socialcast by VMware (NYSE: [ VMW ]) is a social network for business uniting people, information, and applications with its real-time enterprise activity stream engine. Behind the firewall or in the cloud, Socialcast enables instant collaboration in a secure environment. Socialcast is headquartered in San Francisco, California. For more information visit [ www.socialcast.com ] or call 1-888-779-3220.

VMware and Socialcast by VMware are registered trademarks and/or trademarks of VMware, Inc. in the United States and/or other jurisdictions. All other marks and names mentioned herein may be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective companies. The use of the word "partner" or "partnership" does not imply a legal partnership relationship between VMware and any other company.

Forward-Looking Statements

This press release contains forward-looking statements including, among other things, statements regarding plans for Socialcast's enterprise social network to be integrated with Lithium's social customer suite and their planned functionality and benefits to end users. These forward-looking statements are subject to the safe harbor provisions created by the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. Actual results could differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements as a result of certain risk factors, including but not limited to (i) changes to priorities and levels of government spending; (ii) adverse changes in general economic or market conditions; (iii) delays or reductions in information technology spending; (iv) competitive factors, including but not limited to pricing pressures, industry consolidation, entry of new competitors into the virtualization and cloud computing markets, and new product and marketing initiatives by our competitors; (v) our customers' ability to develop, and to transition to, new products and computing strategies such as cloud computing and desktop virtualization; (vi) the uncertainty of customer acceptance of emerging technology; (vii) rapid technological and market changes in virtualization software and platforms for cloud and desktop computing; (viii) changes to product development timelines; (ix) VMware's ability to protect its proprietary technology; and (x) VMware's ability to attract and retain highly qualified employees.. These forward looking statements are based on current expectations and are subject to uncertainties and changes in condition, significance, value and effect as well as other risks detailed in documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our most recent reports on Form 10-K and Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K that we may file from time to time, which could cause actual results to vary from expectations. VMware assumes no obligation to, and does not currently intend to, update any such forward-looking statements after the date of this release.