IDC Forecasts Strong Growth in Enterprise Social Software Spending
Juan Carlos Perez – pcworld.com Demand for enterprise social software will grow strongly in the coming years, as more organizations implement the products to improve collaboration and communication primarily among employees, but also with customers, according to IDC.
Between 2011 and 2016, IDC expects the compound annual growth rate in spending to hit 42.4 percent for this type of product, also commonly referred to as “enterprise social collaboration” and “enterprise social networking” software.
“We’re seeing good strong growth from the major players in this market and that’ll continue for quite a while,” said Michael Fauscette, lead author of two IDC reports out this week about enterprise social software.
Customers spent US$767.4 million on the products globally in 2011, and will spend almost $4.5 billion in 2016, according to IDC’s “Worldwide Enterprise Social Software 2012-2016 Forecast” (continued…)
Yammer, Chatter, Tibbr Ranked Top Social Activity Streams
David F. Carr – informationweek.com Forrester Research ranks the leaders in a market segment that excludes social intranet portal players like Jive Software.
Forrester Research is back with a report on enterprise activity streams, the social software vendors it left out of its evaluation of enterprise social collaboration platforms in mid 2011.
The leaders among enterprise activity streams products, according to Forrester, are Yammer, Saleforce.com’s Chatter, and Tibco’s Tibbr. Socialcast, now the flagship of VMware’s social software division, and Neudesic Pulse were also recognized as “strong performers” (continued…)
Microsoft Bamboozled by Yammer in $1.2 Billion Purchase
Estaban Kolsky – enterpriseirregulars.com Well, after that title — what else is there to say?
Lots, hear me out – I’d like to tell you why I am going against all the optimists out there (although I do consider myself an optimist) and why I liken this deal to AOL acquiring Time Warner (and we all know how well that went to define the new world of media – no?).
Here is the deal from where I sit and the many, many, many conversations I had inside and outside of both vendors to define where things are and where they are going. What follows is my analysis, which I would normally put in a research note and distribute just to a select few — but when I am going down, I like to go down in flames. I trust most of you won’t agree with my reasoning, so let’s have it out and dish it out in style.
There are four reasons that have been ballyhooed around for this acquisition to happen: (continued…)
What is enterprise social networking software?
Much has been written about the IT department’s control of social networks like Twitter and Facebook within the workplace. Similarly, many have opined that these networks are useful – perhaps even required – as tools to manage customer relationships.
But enterprise social software is another thing altogether.
The strength of consumer tools like Facebook is their ability to allow a single user to share ideas, questions and information quickly to a range of trusted people. In other words, they allow ‘one-to-many relationships’ of sharing. Instead of phoning his friends one by one to get a restaurant recommendation, social networking user Billy McGenericName can log onto Facebook and, with a single status update, can ask all of his 9000 friends (in typical Gen Y fashion, Billy is surprisingly well liked) where he should eat.
Enterprise social software works in a very similar fashion. In the office, if Billy needs to find out where to file a particular report, instead of approaching 10 people directly and asking one by one, he can simply pop onto his company’s social network and send his question to the entire company, easily tapping into the collective knowledge of his workmates. Similarly, if Billy’s manager needs to inform the 15 people working on a particular project that a client has pulled out, or that a milestone has been met, social enterprise tools can make this process simpler (continued…)
Reimagining the Intranet: Content in Context
The morning of the second day of any conference is always a difficult one, and not just because of all the socializing the night before. The Advanced Intranet+ Portal conference in Amsterdam was no exception, largely due to the questions raised on the future of the Intranet.
Clearly, no one has all the answers on this one, but what is clear is that the future will be dominated by many of the issues that cropped-up on day one: mobile, collaboration and social intranets.
Not very original perhaps, but there is a general consensus that the future of enterprise intranets is going to be all these things (continued…)
