Network authentication is based on Kerberos, Mayo said, using "constrained delegation," a feature of minimum rights and . Lockheed Martin came up with its own tool, YouSecure, for Active Directory groups. Engineers are also looking at using the open API called . 

One of the biggest technical challenges so far is trying to get the Google search mechanism to perform at the lightning speeds that individuals expect on the public Web in the internal environment where there are special blocks on documents, Dahlen said.

Although this first iteration of Unity is for U.S.-only employees at Lockheed Martin and doesn't include classified documents, there's growing demand within the company to do more with Unity. "The women's group asked for it to be open internationally," Dahlen noted.

For Lockheed Martin, it's still a tough call on how far to take social networking.

While the company has designed an internal social-networking platform, it so far doesn't include outsiders like business partners. Lockheed is working on coming up with a broad social-networking policy, Dahlen said, but today blocks access to most of the popular public social-networking sites.