Clio is a SaaS provider that managed to come up with its own unique twist to the cloud, which has been reinvented more than a handful of time by the many different vendors in this increasingly crowded market. Clio did so by choosing a very niche market: lawyers.

Smaller firms and independent practitioners can’t afford to setup an on-premise IT infrastructure, but could still very much use solutions that help them manage data better and become more efficient overall. This is the audience Clio is tapping, and this idea has been working out well so far. A couple months ago the company even received $6 million in capital from a few investors who decided to put their money on this concept’s future growth.

Today’s announcement is one more step that will help realize this vision of growth. The software maker revealed the Clio Platform, an API that lets developers integrate its legal platform with their own apps. Several early adopters have already managed to flesh out this integration and fit it into their portfolio, including one particular firm called DirectLaw.

“DirectLaw provides a virtual law firm platform to solos and small law firms that enables these law firms to deliver legal services over the Internet without developing complex software applications on their own. DirectLaw’s integration with Clio allows for matters, documents and clients to be shared between Clio and DirectLaw.”

Clio has managed to produce an interesting product, which proves as a very valid angle to the existing tale of the social enterprise. This trend is stretching out across more and more segments as it expands, with more and more vendors addressing the enterprise’s needs.

Logitech, for one, recently released an HD webcam/speakerphone hybrid product that’s specifically designed for business-grade web conferencing; functionality that is becoming essential in commercial collaboration tools.