New offering enables group chat users to experience benefits of real-time team collaboration before making long-term commitment

London, 2 June 2011 - Formicary Collaboration Group, a provider of real-time team collaboration solutions, has launched a hosted Group Chat evaluation portal. The new offering introduces Group Chat tools and enhancements and enables customers and prospects to experience the benefits of Group Chat as a business communication tool. Formicary’s aim is to help users feel fully informed before making the decision to commit resources to purchasing or rolling out the tool.

Group Chat allows users to have topic-based, multi-party discussions that persist over time. In contrast to email, which is not well-suited to conversations between several people, Group Chat enables efficient knowledge sharing and discussions as a group, thereby transforming how businesses communicate. Chat discussions by their very nature bring like-minded people together to discuss and solve issues, and source industry experts on a common subject that will help to create and strengthen working relationships.

Formicary’s trial offering will demonstrate the practical benefits of Microsoft’s unified communications offering - Lync Server 2010 Group Chat – when exposed through different devices or integrated into clients such as Microsoft SharePoint Server and Microsoft Outlook. The evaluation portal also features customised RSS feeds reflected in selected chat rooms and a dedicated support chat room managed by Formicary will also be available to users who have any enquiries or questions.

“Introducing new technology can be a daunting prospect, and organisations need to be confident that they will see a return on investment,” explains Neal Fiske, Business Development Director of Formicary Collaboration Group. “However, we believe that evaluation by experience – which enables businesses to use their own real-life examples as well as benefit from Formicary’s expertise - is an effective, low-risk, method to communicate the value of Group Chat.”

“We want to expose customers already using Group Chat to new opportunities and scenarios. At the same time it is important to share best practices with new customers and demonstrate the value and benefits of group chat when used effectively within their business. We are confident that they will see Group Chat as an inexpensive tool that will improve internal and external collaboration, and embrace it as a result,” Fiske concludes.