Forrester predicts dramatic growth in Enterprise 2.0

Forrester Research predicts that by 2013, the global Enterprise 2.0 will be $4.6 Billion. The biggest growth and share will be in social networking.

One example of an enterprise social network is NewsGator’s SocialSites. It built on top of Microsoft SharePoint and provides a dynamic space for communities, expertise location and “work streaming”. Two screenshots from NewsGator Profile Page and Community Site.

A few of the key messages from the report are:

  • that consumer Web 2.0 products are not long-term solutions for enterprises, especially free or ad-supported services
  • IT continues to be the gatekeeper preventing Web 2.0 applications from being leveraged in the enterprise
  • business areas are asking for these tools and bypassing IT if they find a service that will help them in some area
  • IT is worried about scalability of these applications
  • IT budgets are primarily focused on maintaining legacy applications with little capacity to look at these new tools
  • younger employees growing up with these tools will want something similar when they arrive at your doorstep to work
  • IT is concerned about the security of Web 2.0 applications
  • major enterprise players (IBM, Microsoft, etc) will make Enterprise 2.0 a feature of their monolithic solutions
  • major growth in the enterprise will not happen until the baby boomers retire from the executive ranks
  • social networking tools that allow customer interaction, profiles and participation in discussions and blogs will receive significant investment

Read a good review of the Forrester report.

Enterprise 2.0 Spending - Forrester

Enterprise 2.0 Spending - Forrester

Via ReadWriteWeb.com

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