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Intel To Package Web Tools

Think of it as Wikipedia for the workplace. Intel Corp., the world's largest computer chip maker, now wants to provide businesses with software to create blogging, wiki and news feed services to connect employees on collaborative projects.

The Santa Clara-based company announced this week that it is partnering with five software companies that specialize in so-called "Web 2.0" tools, which allow users to easily publish and share information.

The result is SuiteTwo, a software package targeted at small- to medium-sized businesses and work groups within larger companies. It promises to help improve communications by providing one-stop shopping for the hottest Internet publishing tools.

NewsGator Technologies Inc. and SimpleFeed Inc. are providing the tools for Really Simple Syndication, or RSS, a technology for notifying users of new entries on their favorite news sites and Web journals, or blogs.

Six Apart Ltd. is providing blogging tools and Socialtext Inc. the technology for wikis, which let groups jointly add, edit and even delete documents, similar to Wikipedia's collaborative online encyclopedia.

Rounding out the group assembled by Intel's venture capital arm is SpikeSource Inc., which develops open-source applications.

Instead of companies having to adopt the programs piecemeal, Intel will be offering the suite through its network of personal computer makers and other distributors in hopes it will become the standard set of collaborative tools for office workers.

Intel said the software suite will run on Microsoft Corp.'s Windows, Red Hat Inc.'s Enterprise Linux and Novell Inc.'s SUSE Linux Enterprise Server.

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