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It's striking how many companies are building applications on the Sharepoint platform. The latest example is Spigit, which can now be integrated in Sharepoint for innovation management.

Spigit provides tools for community collaboration through collecting ideas, advanced filtering and analytics. The tools represent in many respects the ways in which the enterprise is adopting practices developed by social networks. And it shows in turn how Sharepoint is becoming an application platform for collaborative technologies.

We sure are hearing the chickens running around in a panic about the dangers of cloud computing following the massive data loss involving T-Mobile Sidekick customers. And as usual, the cacophony sounds more like a bunch of pundits ruminating about the great dangers that may be ahead instead of the reality at hand.

The problem is, most of them are making zero distinction about what constitutes a cloud computing service. The Sidekick disaster was not the result of a cloud disaster. It was a centralized data center that had poor oversight.

We promise to refrain from any cynicism about the survey results we receive. That said the surveys are sometimes misleading, looking for a public relations hit. Hope that isn't too cynical but the results of a Citibank commissioned survey about small business use of social media makes us wonder.

Citibank and GfK Roper conducted the survey. GfK Roper interviewed 500 small business people over the phone. The businesses had fewer than 100 employees. They were drawn from a database and segmented by SIC code. Segments included manufacturing/construction, transportation and communication, wholesale/retail, financial services and professional services.

Now that Ray Ozzie has stepped into the ring with the news that Microsoft is launching a full-on social lab, it's clear that the Enterprise 2.0 movement is moving into a new phase.

Now comes the question of what effect Microsoft will have on the way Enterprise 2.0 evolves and what roles the players that are early to the game will play in its future.

A Forrester study reports that real-time collaboration has stalled in the enterprise due in most part to the lack of adoption in technologies such as web conferencing and instant messaging. That may be true with existing technologies but it is important to note the new generation of applications that extend real-time collaboration tools.

The State Of Workforce Technology Adoption by Forrester is definitely comprehensive in its examination of how people use technology in the workforce. It's a mass market report, meaning this is how people use technology today. They surveyed 2,001 "information workers" at organizations with 100 or more employees. It is Forrester's first report in this realm. It covers devices, productivity, mobility, collaboration, intranet portals and Web 2.0.

Tibco is offering a real-time service called iProcess Spotfire that allows business users to manipulate data and produce reports from their business process management (BPM) software.

Tibco's do-it-yourself (DIY) service represents one of the promises of the real-time enterprise. The task of updating and fine tuning BPM software usually requires the help of IT personnel. It's reminiscent of how the web has made the most complex tasks fairly doable by people with little expertise. Tasks that once required experts now can be performed by people with few technical skills.

A Deloitte study that came out this morning shows a much deeper interest in the social web but still a lot of potential left to tap.

This is the second year Deloitte LLC has evaluated the perceived potential of online communities and how enterprises believe it can be better leveraged. The study, interestingly titled "Tribalization of Business," measures the responses of more than 400 companies, including Fortune 100 organizations that have created and now maintain online communities.

A hypothetical discussion between a cloud consultant and his client that is just too good not be posted on this late Tuesday night. Just be forewarned - this is NSFW.

When the dust settles after the Sharepoint 2010 launch, a number of questions will be answered. In particular, does Sharepoint match the best of breed social enterprise applications that keep entering the market?

The very notion of data silos seems to be turning upside down and sideways and shaken all around. A whole new generation of applications are infiltrating the enterprise and bringing out a new dimension of intelligence not previously explored.