The Future of Enterprise 2.0 Technologies
In a couple of reports released today, Forrester Research makes projections on the future of enterprise web technologies. Forrester predicts that social networking tools and internal wikis "will have the greatest impact on workplace collaboration". It is bullish too on forums and RSS, which Forrester claims "have a future in the enterprise but are currently underused". Mashups are also mentioned in the report - previously they'd claimed it would be a $700 million market by 2013. As for which technologies will decline, Forrester says that podcasts have "a limited future as an enterprise tool".
Forrester is also skeptical about microblogging tools in the enterprise - such as Twitter, Socialcast and Yammer. The report rather cynically suggested that "microblogs appeal to both the egocentrism and the voyeurism of Web 2.0 aficionados." Nevertheless Forrester said that it expects enterprise microblogs to "become a feature, not a standalone product category".
Oliver Young, an analyst at Forrester Research, stated that despite there being a lot of buzz about the consumer market for web 2.0 applications, "the greatest opportunity today for vendors is in the business-to-business collaboration space".
For the technologies that Forrester is most bullish on, social networking and wikis, the report stated that the "cultural resistance" to social networks will "eventually break, allowing workers to connect with like-minded colleagues and enabling a collaboration channel that previously didn't exist in the enterprise." On wikis, Forrester noted that users have already reported success with wiki projects and it expects this to grow even more. Wikis are most successful, said Forrester, when sponsored by business leaders and connected to business processes.
Forrester estimated in April that the enterprise 2.0 market will hit $4.6 billion by 2013. They also predicted in October that enterprise 2.0 apps will fall dramatically in price. So while the overall value of enterprise web applications will increase, the amount vendors charge for them is expected to decline over time.
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"microblogs appeal to both the egocentrism and the voyeurism of Web 2.0 aficionados."
But they also appeal to those looking to find answers to questions that Google can not answer. And this becomes even more powerful inside an organisation where data is traditionally even more difficult to find.
Very happy to read that, I also believe that the social web will improve the way we work, watch out for Producteev.com!
Richard:
Guess I'll need to read the original reports. I wonder if the Forrester analysts took into account the high number of tech journalists (both in trade media & mainstream media) who have adopted Twitter, FriendFeed, Pownce and/or other microblogging tools? I suspect not.
I believe that tech journos have been fairly accurate early leading indicators for new technologies that are gonna stick around long-term. (Ditto for tech PR folks.)
Will each of these microblogging tools/services be successful (and/or in business) 18 months from now? Probably not.
But I'll bet at least two microblogging services will still in business a year-and-a-half from now. Let's see.
David Politis
c/o Politis Communications
"Maximizing corporate value
thru strategic communications"
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I'm surprised to see the skepticism over microblogging tools. It seems to me that incorporating these elements into a company wide social network (perhaps under the premise of "What are you working on right now?") would be a natural fit of microblogging to enterprise applications.
I do like the Forrester predictions.... most of them I do agree.. .but they forget that microblogging is one of the best ways to keep people up to date in a highly collaborative environment. I've learned that in practise..
-Aad
Posted by: aadje.myopenid.com
|
November 3, 2008 1:10 PM
David,
Let me address your wonder. Yes, I am pretty excited about microblogging tools like twitter and lifestreaming tools like FriendFeed. I use them, and other tools like them. I'll plug a recent blog post of mine: http://blogs.forrester.com/information_management/2008/10/why-the-big-fus.html
What people like us are doing on the bleeding edge is fascinating -- but we don't assume that enterprise users are going to adopt the behaviors of publicly facing folks. The motivators are not the same. New tools are emerging to accomidate their different needs. And we collected data to report on the ecosystem of these tools. Of course, 18 months will bring many changes. And the TechRadar methodology is designed to show the reader how and why we predict the velocity of change for each technology.
You are right, the best bet is to read the report, because we go into more details about our findings there. I look forward to your comments, and I hope you find the report valuable.
A great testament to what we've been experiencing at MindTouch - incredible growth and adoption with enterprise mashups.
More than ever before, companies are realizing the benefits, like increased efficiency, around integrating custom applications that mash disparate systems into one space. The recent economic turmoil has forced businesses into the realization that improving the way we work is critical…not a luxury.
Another great article about how wikis & mashups are changing the ways of the Intranet was in the NY Times last week: http://www.nytimes.com/external/idg/2008/10/28/28idg-How-I-saved-my.html
Hey thanks for the mention.
We hear a lot of smart people glibly making the “feature vs. app” case. It’s somewhat puzzling. Those same folks would never question that there is a dramatic difference between Twitter (microsharing as app) and Facebook (microsharing as feature) in terms of utility, network effects, surfacing of news, pass along of information, establishment of new ties and overall business opportunity.
"microblogs appeal to both the egocentrism and the voyeurism of Web 2.0 aficionados."
This is probably a pretty myopic view of microblogging. The biggest mistake I have seen analysts make about 'taking consumer tools to the enterprise' is the fact that they try to envision all of the consumer app and its values replicated within the enterprise. That's when the whole concept falls apart. Every consumer tool in its exact form would always look to be a time waster and a distraction, as most managers are seeing their employees distracted from work because of facebook / twitter. Similar things have been said in the past by analysts about email, chat, IM and even the Internet in the enterprise. I think its not the application, but the context of facebook / twitter (personal, social, etc.) which is the distraction.
One of the key reasons to success of microblogging is that it is most definitely the *simplest* tool on the planet to enable mass communication in a publish subscribe model. I predict that A simple p
Oops! I dont know how that comment got snipped, so posting it again,
"microblogs appeal to both the egocentrism and the voyeurism of Web 2.0 aficionados."
This is probably a pretty myopic view of microblogging. The biggest mistake I have seen analysts make about 'taking consumer tools to the enterprise' is the fact that they try to envision all of the consumer app and its values replicated within the enterprise. That's when the whole concept falls apart. Every consumer tool in its exact form would always look to be a time waster and a distraction, as most managers are seeing their employees distracted from work because of facebook / twitter. Similar things have been said in the past by analysts about email, chat, IM and even the Internet in the enterprise. I think its not the application, but the context of facebook / twitter (personal, social, etc.) which is the distraction.
One of the key reasons to success of microblogging is that it is most definitely the *simplest* tool on the planet to enable mass communication in a publish subscribe model. I predict that A simple publish - subscribe based communication tool (whatever the market eventually calls it) will become common in enterprises, sooner than later. Simplicity is something that enterprise applications truly lack and enterprise users truly crave for.
Sure, wiki's are the most successful in the enterprise, but lets not forget that most analysts also say that only 2% users contribute, and the rest are consumers. Its because wiki's are still 'difficult' to use. Its something non-geeks have to 'learn'. Microblogging tools on the other hand can be used by most technically challenged people.
We and our partners have been implementing cyn.in (http://cyn.in) for mid to large sized companies for over 2 years now. 3 months back we released an internal beta v2.1, that has microblogging as a feature (cyn.in has had a wiki always), along with a desktop client to a majority of our customers. Almost 80% of them agreed that the microblogging feature (we call it status log) has caused a 100% increase in the internal adoption of cyn.in. That is saying a lot, because, most enterprises struggle with internal adoption of any new technology.
Though cyn.in is a collaboration application platform for the enterprise, and microblogging is just a feature for us, I think there is still room for smaller niche tools specifically targeting towards microblogging in the enterprise.
The report apparently is correct about wiki's being the most significant application in the enterprise. cyn.in has various applications like blogs & bookmarks, but we have seen most serious usage of wikis in customer trends.
We have now publicly launched cyn.in 2.1, more about it here : http://blog.cynapse.com/cynin-v2-1-release-announcement