DISQUS

oliver marks · 1 year ago

Very cogent and coherent contribution to this debate. Conventional wisdom of course is that the big dogs- Oracle, IBM, MSoft et al, will ultimately provide the underlying infrastructure for collaboration with other players either subsumed or in niche roles augmenting big player platforms.
Assuming for a moment this is how things play out the bigger question then becomes in what timeframe. In my earlier post you cite above, I deliberately linked to an IBM 'collaboration' page that was less than impressive. I know IBM are planning big things but no one challenged my post, unlike the sharepoint civil defense force who are vigilantly scanning the horizon for comments about their baby.

The reality is most enterprises are not ready for fully formed 'solution' suites at this point in time. We are in a fascinating era where collaboration processes and procedures are still evolving - software represents the functionality required from this thinking and at this point the solution is often a combination of different apps under single sign on for specific goals.

There clearly will be consolidation and shake out in this space which is set to be joined by yet more me-to apps as the consumer web 2.0 bubble deflates and attempts are made to rationalize 'social' in the enterprise.

What I'm seeing on the ground today as an enterprise collaboration consultant recommending appropriate sets of tools for a given set of client needs is diversity. This diversity is typical solved with an amalgamation of appropriate solutions, usually under single sign on.

There's no question suites are coming as we rationalize but that day hasn't arrived. Yet.

bmagierski · 1 year ago

Thanks Oliver - great comment. I agree that IBM page is not impressive in
the least, and the timeframe question for the big players is the real
question. All have a placeholder for sure because they have to, but many
lack commitment - in the ham & eggs analogy, they are the eggs. This
includes Sharepoint despite the civil defense force you mention. The
Sharepoint story seems to their typical play - rather than just have a
placeholder, they deliberately seed something inside their customers into
which will grow whatever needs to grow to dominate that part of the customer
infrastructure over whatever timeframe it takes them to figure it out.
I agree with your comment - we are seeing the natural evolution in market
development in play here - from Education to Custom Solution development to
more packaged Applications / Solutions. We're probably in between the
Education and Custom Solution development stage, with collaborative
processes now being defined in some enterprises / industries, and custom
solutions being developed on these infrastructure toolsets - wikis, blogs,
forums, social nets, Sharepoint : ) - and single sign-on.

Dennis is probably right, these infrastructure players get consolidated into
the infrastructure. Alongside that, new application / social enterprise apps
providers will emerge building the next generation apps leveraging this web
middleware. All in all, a fun time to be in the market.

Jeff Dachis · 1 year ago

Well said

staffpower · 2 weeks ago

Discussing of Enterprise Social Software is very amazing.
staffing power