BUSINESS SOFTWARE FOR THE MIDMARKET
SharePoint alternatives seek to fill in the gaps
Christina Torode, Senior News Writer
12.18.2008
When it comes to departmental file sharing or collaborative workspaces, Microsoft's SharePoint has legions of fans in midsized companies. But for those not interested in paying for SharePoint (the basic version is free), or who find some features immature in the latest version, there are SharePoint alternatives.
The reason for SharePoint adoption is clear: Many organizations (and non-IT departments) began grassroots deployments after they upgraded to Windows Server and got a basic SharePoint feature set for free. There were also products in the SharePoint family available for a fee, including SharePoint Portal Server 2003, which many organizations used as a steppingstone to Microsoft Office SharePoint 2007 (MOSS 2007). MOSS 2007 is a major upgrade from SharePoint Server 2003, with a lot more functionality.
The move to MOSS 2007 seems to be natural once users install Office 2007. A Forrester Research Inc. survey conducted in March of 233 IT decision makers using Office 2007 showed that 24% said they had immediate plans to move to MOSS 2007 and 41% expected to install it within six months. And in yet-to-be-published research, Information Architected Inc. found that of 400 respondents surveyed, the majority of the midmarket companies already had MOSS 2007 installed. Midmarket companies accounted for 35% of the respondents, and among this group, half said price was not an inhibitor for MOSS deployments. Although nearly half -- 46% -- said the price was higher than they expected.
SharePoint add-ons:
A sampling
Microsoft typically leaves plenty of room for partners and competitors to fill in the gaps when it releases a new technology. Startups have grown out of developing applications and tools for Microsoft's server and desktop management products, and behemoths have built security add-ons for the Windows OS for years.
This tradition is continuing with Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007 (MOSS 2007). Below is a sampling of the many SharePoint add-ons now available.
NewsGator Social Sites 2.5 is a social computing enhancement that lets users create community discussions around documents within SharePoint.
MOSS Faceted Search is a free set of Web parts that refine search results by category.
Colligo for SharePoint lets users drag and drop emails and attachments into document libraries and gives mobile workers offline access to SharePoint.
Site Administrator for SharePoint from Quest Software Inc. comes with 30 standard reports and allows IT to manage permissions and set policies in SharePoint.
"When we asked [the survey respondents] if the cost of MOSS was in line with their expectations or more than they expected, 50% said the cost was pretty much in line with their expectations," said Carl Frappaolo, co-founder and principle of Boston-based Information Architected.
Microsoft estimates MOSS pricing at $4,424 for a server license and $94 per client access license in the U.S.
Microsoft's strategy with SharePoint is to undercut competing enterprise content management (ECM) products that are perceived as complex and expensive, with a product that promises ease of use, flexibility and a less costly enterprise-scale feature set. One key benefit is its tight integration with other Microsoft products such as Exchange Server, Office Communications Server, Office Live Meeting and Live Workspace. Simplicity allows business departments to create their own team workspaces.
"Basic functions like workspaces typically come first and getting governance around that, then people tend to explore other areas [of SharePoint] based on pain points or risk factors," said Rob Koplowitz, an analyst at Cambridge, Mass.-based Forrester.
MOSS' capabilities range from basic collaboration to portal creation and business intelligence content management. Yet MOSS' breadth is both too much and not enough for some midmarket users.
While the portal capabilities in MOSS are mature, for example, some companies are holding off on what they perceive as less-developed features in the suite, such as social networking, enterprise search and Web content management capabilities. These companies are waiting until Microsoft releases the next version, Koplowitz said.
Another potential drawback is a dearth in skill sets, as well as a lack of SharePoint documentation coming from Microsoft, said John Bissa, a partner and Web development team leader at accounting firm Plante & Moran PLLC in Southfield, Mich. On the surface, SharePoint is easy to get off the ground, but he said he's finding that people quickly get in over their heads.
"There's a lot of bad SharePoint [deployments] out there because there are more people deploying it than those who know how to use it," he said.
The alternatives
Although SharePoint appears to be on a lot of CIOs' agendas, midmarket businesses have plenty of other choices.
There's integration with enterprise content management systems. IBM offers integration between FileNet ECM and MOSS 2007, for example. Fellow competitor Oracle Corp. has made it possible for users to access Oracle Universal Content Management files from the SharePoint interface.
There's a lot of bad SharePoint [deployments] out there because there are more people deploying it than those who know how to use it. John Bissa
partner and Web development team leader, Plante & Moran PLLC
There are also third-party add-ons (see related story, above right).
Lotus Notes and Domino's collaboration and content management capabilities are often stacked up as a SharePoint alternative, as are Lotus Quickr and Novell's SiteScape for workspaces. There is also Oracle's WebCenter suite for portals and Web application development and its Beehive online workplace.
Open Text Corp., with its ECM suite, is another company that both competes and integrates with SharePoint.
Competing products and vendors in the Web 2.0 space include Jive Software's Clearspace business social community software, which has customers in the midsized market, and Atlassian Software Systems Pty Ltd. and Socialtext Inc. These started out as wikis but are broadening their community-based collaborative offerings.
For open source alternatives, Alfresco Software Inc. has its ECM platform and Drupal is free software that lets you build community workspaces and portals.
Yet for all these options, SharePoint may be the 800-pound gorilla -- at least for now.
"Competitors are trying to do similar things [as SharePoint], but they really only have point solutions in comparison," said Peter O'Kelly, a Boston-based independent industry analyst.
Let us know what you think about the story; email: Christina Torode, Senior News Writer.
Thursday, December 18, 2008
Thursday, December 11, 2008
Was it right to censor a Wikipedia page?
Was it right to censor a Wikipedia page?
By Struan Robertson, legal director, international law firm Pinsent Masons
Published: December 11 2008 16:37 | Last updated: December 11 2008 16:37
At the moment, most people cannot edit the page on Wikipedia that describes the Internet Watch Foundation. The “free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit” is wisely restricting who can edit that page following an outbreak of what it calls “vandalism”. Right now, the IWF is very unpopular.
The IWF exists to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet. But its existence is being challenged over its handling of a recent complaint. It was about an image that appeared on another Wikipedia page, concerning an album by German rock band Scorpions. The image featured a naked young girl. It was the original sleeve design for the band’s 1976 album “Virgin Killer”.
The IWF deemed the image potentially illegal and added the page on which it appeared to a blacklist that is enforced by all of the UK’s major internet service providers (ISPs). That action prevented most UK internet users from accessing the Wikipedia page and, due in part to the way that Wikipedia functions, it had the unintended side-effect of stopping those users from editing any of the millions of Wikipedia pages.
The web community erupted in fury. Comments on blogs were overwhelmingly anti-IWF. Fairly quickly, the IWF gave in to some of the criticism. It removed the image from its blacklist, though, after consulting with senior police officers, reiterated its view that the image is potentially illegal.
In my view, the IWF was right to put the image on its blacklist. It was wrong to remove it from the list.
Many people were alarmed to learn this week that there are restrictions on their freedom to surf the internet. Wikimedia, the non-profit operator of Wikipedia, said that this was the first time its site has been censored in the UK. It noted that it has been censored at various times in China, Syria and Iran.
Like it or not, censorship exists in the UK. The right to freedom of expression in the country is a qualified right. The European Convention of Human Rights provides that it can be restricted by laws to protect morals, the reputation or rights of others or laws to prevent the leak of confidential information. Laws on child protection, defamation, intellectual property and confidence all contain a right to suppress online material – which falls within Wikipedia’s own definition of censorship.
Other critics dislike that the IWF decides what to censor. They are right that it should not make that decision if it fails to perform that duty well. But do not judge it on the basis of one decision. It assessed 35,000 complaints in the course of last year alone (and in two-thirds of cases the image was deemed lawful).
The blacklist is kept secret for obvious reasons, but internet users who try to visit the pages on it will be oblivious to the censorship – and I think this is a mistake. ISPs present an error message that does not disclose the censorship. While the IWF can’t control that message, it could encourage transparency.
There is another problem with the IWF’s model: it bans pages, not the images themselves. It says this approach is simpler and more effective, though I confess that I don’t understand why. Still, if that policy is disproportionate it is only slightly so: it did not blacklist an entire site.
The IWF was set up by the UK’s internet industry. It began as a “notice and takedown” body for images of child abuse that are hosted in the UK, giving the public a hotline for reporting illegal images. Web hosts do not know what images are on their customers’ sites and do not need to, provided they react quickly when alerted to potentially illegal content. Only a court can officially declare an image illegal but hosts cannot afford to await that declaration – otherwise it may come at their own trial on charges that carry a maximum 10-year sentence. And they don’t want to give their own staff the job of receiving complaints with images of child abuse attached, so they outsourced the bulk of the work of receiving and assessing complaints – and the IWF was born.
When child abuse images are hosted in the UK, the IWF can identify and notify the host and the host removes them. Its work has cut dramatically the volume of illegal images hosted in the UK.
The IWF’s more controversial operation is the maintenance of its blacklist. When images are found to be hosted outside the UK, the IWF cannot ensure they are taken down. It reports the image to equivalent bodies and law enforcement in the hosting country and adds the URL to its blacklist, a list it updates twice a day. That list is followed by most ISPs in the UK, mainly to prevent their customers stumbling upon illegal images, images which are illegal to view.
Many people don’t like ISPs using this blacklist to censor their surfing. But ISPs do it in the knowledge that if they don’t, the government will intervene. Vernon Coaker, Minister of State for policing, security and crime, said so. He set a target for the end of 2007 for all ISPs to put in place technical measures ”that prevent their customers accessing websites containing illegal images of child abuse identified by the IWF”.
The IWF does not lobby for legal reform – it just interprets the legislation and court rulings that exist. It has a small team of analysts who train with the police and are experts in assessing content in line with those laws. The government trusts it to do this job.
Other industries have their own self-regulatory bodies staffed by experts in the field. The Advertising Standards Authority can ban adverts from TV without a court ruling. Spamhaus blacklists spammers to protect e-mail inboxes. Such bodies are accountable to their industries and the IWF is no different. If it fails in its duty, ISPs can kill it. If they do, they can either replace it or the government will replace it for them.
Some people have said that the Scorpions’ image is harmless in their opinion. My advice: consider it illegal because the IWF’s opinion is likely to be, in legal terms, better informed – and therefore more influential in the mind of a judge. So don’t go looking for it. It was blacklisted because it fails a test of the Protection of Children Act (a law that did not exist at the time of the album’s release). That test says that an erotically posed photograph of an under-18 will constitute an indecent and therefore illegal image. It will not censor Michelangelo’s David or a cartoon, because it is limited to photographs and pseudo-photographs. It is unlikely to censor the album cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, on which a naked baby swims towards a dollar bill, because courts have never interpreted such images as erotically posed.
The IWF deemed the Scorpions’ image sexually provocative. It invoked its appeals procedure after Wikimedia complained and it upheld its original ruling. But the IWF decided to remove the page from its blacklist ”in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability”, it said. Further reports of the image being hosted abroad will not be added to its blacklist, though if the image is found to be hosted in the UK, it ”will be assessed in line with IWF procedures”.
”IWF’s overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,” it said.
I think it was right to blacklist the image after it deemed the image illegal. But a dangerous message is sent by the decision to remove the image from its blacklist. If an image is illegal, should its age or wide dissemination excuse repeated publication? The image cannot be erased from every corner of the internet and prosecutors will not be taking action against all those who own a copy on album sleeve or hard drive. But the IWF’s job is to minimise exposure to illegal images – not to eliminate it. Under enormous pressure I think it lost sight of the distinction.
Censorship takes place in the UK every day, for legal, moral and commercial reasons. When Wikipedia blocks those who vandalise its pages or deletes their hateful comments, it too engages in censorship. Internet companies engage in censorship because they have to – and they outsource part of that burden to the IWF. This incident has focused attention not just on a 1970s album cover. Clearly some people dislike our laws, our industry’s preference for self-regulation and/or the operation of the IWF, though they have failed to offer a credible alternative, one that the industry and government would support.
Balancing our freedom of expression with the protection of children is difficult and important. It is a healthy issue to debate. But like any Wikipedia article, that debate needs some balance. In this case, that balance was missing.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By Struan Robertson, legal director, international law firm Pinsent Masons
Published: December 11 2008 16:37 | Last updated: December 11 2008 16:37
At the moment, most people cannot edit the page on Wikipedia that describes the Internet Watch Foundation. The “free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit” is wisely restricting who can edit that page following an outbreak of what it calls “vandalism”. Right now, the IWF is very unpopular.
The IWF exists to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet. But its existence is being challenged over its handling of a recent complaint. It was about an image that appeared on another Wikipedia page, concerning an album by German rock band Scorpions. The image featured a naked young girl. It was the original sleeve design for the band’s 1976 album “Virgin Killer”.
The IWF deemed the image potentially illegal and added the page on which it appeared to a blacklist that is enforced by all of the UK’s major internet service providers (ISPs). That action prevented most UK internet users from accessing the Wikipedia page and, due in part to the way that Wikipedia functions, it had the unintended side-effect of stopping those users from editing any of the millions of Wikipedia pages.
The web community erupted in fury. Comments on blogs were overwhelmingly anti-IWF. Fairly quickly, the IWF gave in to some of the criticism. It removed the image from its blacklist, though, after consulting with senior police officers, reiterated its view that the image is potentially illegal.
In my view, the IWF was right to put the image on its blacklist. It was wrong to remove it from the list.
Many people were alarmed to learn this week that there are restrictions on their freedom to surf the internet. Wikimedia, the non-profit operator of Wikipedia, said that this was the first time its site has been censored in the UK. It noted that it has been censored at various times in China, Syria and Iran.
Like it or not, censorship exists in the UK. The right to freedom of expression in the country is a qualified right. The European Convention of Human Rights provides that it can be restricted by laws to protect morals, the reputation or rights of others or laws to prevent the leak of confidential information. Laws on child protection, defamation, intellectual property and confidence all contain a right to suppress online material – which falls within Wikipedia’s own definition of censorship.
Other critics dislike that the IWF decides what to censor. They are right that it should not make that decision if it fails to perform that duty well. But do not judge it on the basis of one decision. It assessed 35,000 complaints in the course of last year alone (and in two-thirds of cases the image was deemed lawful).
The blacklist is kept secret for obvious reasons, but internet users who try to visit the pages on it will be oblivious to the censorship – and I think this is a mistake. ISPs present an error message that does not disclose the censorship. While the IWF can’t control that message, it could encourage transparency.
There is another problem with the IWF’s model: it bans pages, not the images themselves. It says this approach is simpler and more effective, though I confess that I don’t understand why. Still, if that policy is disproportionate it is only slightly so: it did not blacklist an entire site.
The IWF was set up by the UK’s internet industry. It began as a “notice and takedown” body for images of child abuse that are hosted in the UK, giving the public a hotline for reporting illegal images. Web hosts do not know what images are on their customers’ sites and do not need to, provided they react quickly when alerted to potentially illegal content. Only a court can officially declare an image illegal but hosts cannot afford to await that declaration – otherwise it may come at their own trial on charges that carry a maximum 10-year sentence. And they don’t want to give their own staff the job of receiving complaints with images of child abuse attached, so they outsourced the bulk of the work of receiving and assessing complaints – and the IWF was born.
When child abuse images are hosted in the UK, the IWF can identify and notify the host and the host removes them. Its work has cut dramatically the volume of illegal images hosted in the UK.
The IWF’s more controversial operation is the maintenance of its blacklist. When images are found to be hosted outside the UK, the IWF cannot ensure they are taken down. It reports the image to equivalent bodies and law enforcement in the hosting country and adds the URL to its blacklist, a list it updates twice a day. That list is followed by most ISPs in the UK, mainly to prevent their customers stumbling upon illegal images, images which are illegal to view.
Many people don’t like ISPs using this blacklist to censor their surfing. But ISPs do it in the knowledge that if they don’t, the government will intervene. Vernon Coaker, Minister of State for policing, security and crime, said so. He set a target for the end of 2007 for all ISPs to put in place technical measures ”that prevent their customers accessing websites containing illegal images of child abuse identified by the IWF”.
The IWF does not lobby for legal reform – it just interprets the legislation and court rulings that exist. It has a small team of analysts who train with the police and are experts in assessing content in line with those laws. The government trusts it to do this job.
Other industries have their own self-regulatory bodies staffed by experts in the field. The Advertising Standards Authority can ban adverts from TV without a court ruling. Spamhaus blacklists spammers to protect e-mail inboxes. Such bodies are accountable to their industries and the IWF is no different. If it fails in its duty, ISPs can kill it. If they do, they can either replace it or the government will replace it for them.
Some people have said that the Scorpions’ image is harmless in their opinion. My advice: consider it illegal because the IWF’s opinion is likely to be, in legal terms, better informed – and therefore more influential in the mind of a judge. So don’t go looking for it. It was blacklisted because it fails a test of the Protection of Children Act (a law that did not exist at the time of the album’s release). That test says that an erotically posed photograph of an under-18 will constitute an indecent and therefore illegal image. It will not censor Michelangelo’s David or a cartoon, because it is limited to photographs and pseudo-photographs. It is unlikely to censor the album cover of Nirvana’s Nevermind, on which a naked baby swims towards a dollar bill, because courts have never interpreted such images as erotically posed.
The IWF deemed the Scorpions’ image sexually provocative. It invoked its appeals procedure after Wikimedia complained and it upheld its original ruling. But the IWF decided to remove the page from its blacklist ”in light of the length of time the image has existed and its wide availability”, it said. Further reports of the image being hosted abroad will not be added to its blacklist, though if the image is found to be hosted in the UK, it ”will be assessed in line with IWF procedures”.
”IWF’s overriding objective is to minimise the availability of indecent images of children on the internet, however, on this occasion our efforts have had the opposite effect,” it said.
I think it was right to blacklist the image after it deemed the image illegal. But a dangerous message is sent by the decision to remove the image from its blacklist. If an image is illegal, should its age or wide dissemination excuse repeated publication? The image cannot be erased from every corner of the internet and prosecutors will not be taking action against all those who own a copy on album sleeve or hard drive. But the IWF’s job is to minimise exposure to illegal images – not to eliminate it. Under enormous pressure I think it lost sight of the distinction.
Censorship takes place in the UK every day, for legal, moral and commercial reasons. When Wikipedia blocks those who vandalise its pages or deletes their hateful comments, it too engages in censorship. Internet companies engage in censorship because they have to – and they outsource part of that burden to the IWF. This incident has focused attention not just on a 1970s album cover. Clearly some people dislike our laws, our industry’s preference for self-regulation and/or the operation of the IWF, though they have failed to offer a credible alternative, one that the industry and government would support.
Balancing our freedom of expression with the protection of children is difficult and important. It is a healthy issue to debate. But like any Wikipedia article, that debate needs some balance. In this case, that balance was missing.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Friday, December 05, 2008
Web 2.0 in and beyond the recession
Web 2.0 in and beyond the recession
By John Newton, chief technology office for Alfresco
Published: December 5 2008 11:17 | Last updated: December 5 2008 11:17
Chris Nuttall, in his Valley View column in Digital Business on October 22, pointed to a severe belt tightening in California by the Web 2.0 cohort. On the advice from the venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia, a number of companies are preparing for a long, slow and perhaps painful downturn.
It makes for gloomy reading. With consumer confidence at a low and debt at a high, no technical sector will be immune.
Throughout Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s South of Market, everyone is preparing for the shock. People are being laid off and business models re-examined.
Advertising has been the lifeblood of many of the Web 2.0 sites, and companies that pay for that advertising will chop this discretionary spend, cutting those sites’ lives short. There were already a lot of me-too types of Web 2.0 properties out there that were not long for this world, regardless of a recession. A smart venture capitalist would mercifully end the life of some of these companies now and avoid prolonged agony. Even those with a sufficient critical mass of users and momentum should seriously look in the mirror and decide where to trim the fat.
But in some ways Web 2.0 has never been more alive. Web 2.0 sites that connect people and allow them to share information and more – such as YouTube, Facebook, Wordpress, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn – continue to grow in audience, if not revenue. We are looking up new terms, concepts and people on Wikipedia because it is the only source to be current enough to be authoritative. People are reaching out on Facebook to console each other. I have received a flood of LinkedIn introductions from individuals networking in anticipation of having to find a new job.
Experts reach a new audience through their blogs. There are even complaints that the BBC economics editor, Robert Peston, has too much power in this crisis, in part due to the influence of his blog. In previous recessions, we would read the newspaper and watch television to see the latest in developing economic crises. Not any more.
Companies are turning to blogs, wikis, mash-ups and highly responsive websites in an attempt to engage and keep customers. This is where Web 2.0 excels during the recession. It has been built primarily on open source, much of which costs nothing, thus encouraging this type of prototyping and experimentation.
Open source AJAX Toolkits such as the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Yahoo User Interface (YUI) provide a much richer user experience – livening up dull, tedious websites. Web 2.0 is the power of mass participation and much greater ease-of-use to empower our users as part of the process rather than the target. So many more business initiatives are possible using low-cost business models of mass participation and lowering expenditure through the use of open source.
The best of Web 2.0 will regain their previous value just as Amazon did from Web 1.0. Perhaps Web 2.0 businesses will have to rely on making money by selling low cost services that add value to a person’s life or to their job prospects during the recession. As a result, Web 2.0 properties are likely to be some of the first beneficiaries of recovery due to their engagement through the downturn.
Clever entrepreneurs will create the next great idea from insights gained from both the rise and fall of Web 2.0, just as Web 2.0 was formed from the remains of the previous burst bubble. Some will just be out of work with nothing better to do. Some are too young now to start a company, but will begin developing ideas. There is a very good chance that next year’s freshman intake at Stanford will yield one of these companies just as it did for Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo or Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google.
Whatever comes next, we can be sure that there will be greater storage, bandwidth and computing power to provide that amazement, just as Web 2.0 leveraged the infrastructure that was created at the end of Web 1.0. There is the possibility that these new ideas come out of somewhere other than the west coast of the US, but I wouldn’t count out Silicon Valley’s ability to re-invent itself yet again.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
By John Newton, chief technology office for Alfresco
Published: December 5 2008 11:17 | Last updated: December 5 2008 11:17
Chris Nuttall, in his Valley View column in Digital Business on October 22, pointed to a severe belt tightening in California by the Web 2.0 cohort. On the advice from the venture capitalist Mike Moritz of Sequoia, a number of companies are preparing for a long, slow and perhaps painful downturn.
It makes for gloomy reading. With consumer confidence at a low and debt at a high, no technical sector will be immune.
Throughout Silicon Valley and San Francisco’s South of Market, everyone is preparing for the shock. People are being laid off and business models re-examined.
Advertising has been the lifeblood of many of the Web 2.0 sites, and companies that pay for that advertising will chop this discretionary spend, cutting those sites’ lives short. There were already a lot of me-too types of Web 2.0 properties out there that were not long for this world, regardless of a recession. A smart venture capitalist would mercifully end the life of some of these companies now and avoid prolonged agony. Even those with a sufficient critical mass of users and momentum should seriously look in the mirror and decide where to trim the fat.
But in some ways Web 2.0 has never been more alive. Web 2.0 sites that connect people and allow them to share information and more – such as YouTube, Facebook, Wordpress, Wikipedia, and LinkedIn – continue to grow in audience, if not revenue. We are looking up new terms, concepts and people on Wikipedia because it is the only source to be current enough to be authoritative. People are reaching out on Facebook to console each other. I have received a flood of LinkedIn introductions from individuals networking in anticipation of having to find a new job.
Experts reach a new audience through their blogs. There are even complaints that the BBC economics editor, Robert Peston, has too much power in this crisis, in part due to the influence of his blog. In previous recessions, we would read the newspaper and watch television to see the latest in developing economic crises. Not any more.
Companies are turning to blogs, wikis, mash-ups and highly responsive websites in an attempt to engage and keep customers. This is where Web 2.0 excels during the recession. It has been built primarily on open source, much of which costs nothing, thus encouraging this type of prototyping and experimentation.
Open source AJAX Toolkits such as the Google Web Toolkit (GWT) and Yahoo User Interface (YUI) provide a much richer user experience – livening up dull, tedious websites. Web 2.0 is the power of mass participation and much greater ease-of-use to empower our users as part of the process rather than the target. So many more business initiatives are possible using low-cost business models of mass participation and lowering expenditure through the use of open source.
The best of Web 2.0 will regain their previous value just as Amazon did from Web 1.0. Perhaps Web 2.0 businesses will have to rely on making money by selling low cost services that add value to a person’s life or to their job prospects during the recession. As a result, Web 2.0 properties are likely to be some of the first beneficiaries of recovery due to their engagement through the downturn.
Clever entrepreneurs will create the next great idea from insights gained from both the rise and fall of Web 2.0, just as Web 2.0 was formed from the remains of the previous burst bubble. Some will just be out of work with nothing better to do. Some are too young now to start a company, but will begin developing ideas. There is a very good chance that next year’s freshman intake at Stanford will yield one of these companies just as it did for Jerry Yang and David Filo of Yahoo or Larry Page and Sergey Brin of Google.
Whatever comes next, we can be sure that there will be greater storage, bandwidth and computing power to provide that amazement, just as Web 2.0 leveraged the infrastructure that was created at the end of Web 1.0. There is the possibility that these new ideas come out of somewhere other than the west coast of the US, but I wouldn’t count out Silicon Valley’s ability to re-invent itself yet again.
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2008
Tuesday, December 02, 2008
Magic Quadrant for Social Software, October 2008
Magic Quadrant for Social Software
31 October 2008
Nikos Drakos, Anthony Bradley, Jeffrey Mann
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00162146
The social software market continues to be fueled by increasing interest from buyers looking for social interaction support as well as from vendors looking to establish a foothold in a growing market.
What You Need to Know
Growth, volatility, innovation and immaturity characterize the current state of the social software market. It is evolving in response to the demand for a coherent way to support information creation and sharing, team communication and coordination, and communities and informal social interaction. Buyers are looking for flexible environments where participants can find and interact with one another, and create, organize and share information. The promise is one of improved "connectedness" as well as the capture and dissemination of informal knowledge by capitalizing on community involvement. The idea is to delegate to the community what the community can do more quickly and effectively. Established vendors are enhancing their products with improved support for social interactions. Several smaller vendors have experienced growth so far in 2008 and are gaining some traction within enterprises. A large number of small new vendors (including open-source products) are also competing for enterprise attention. Even though most vendors are still far from delivering mature, complete and dependable social software suites, each could be a good choice for a particular set of requirements and context. Differences in product strengths and questions around long-term viability make it more important to be clear about requirements and payback timescales.
31 October 2008
Nikos Drakos, Anthony Bradley, Jeffrey Mann
Gartner RAS Core Research Note G00162146
The social software market continues to be fueled by increasing interest from buyers looking for social interaction support as well as from vendors looking to establish a foothold in a growing market.
What You Need to Know
Growth, volatility, innovation and immaturity characterize the current state of the social software market. It is evolving in response to the demand for a coherent way to support information creation and sharing, team communication and coordination, and communities and informal social interaction. Buyers are looking for flexible environments where participants can find and interact with one another, and create, organize and share information. The promise is one of improved "connectedness" as well as the capture and dissemination of informal knowledge by capitalizing on community involvement. The idea is to delegate to the community what the community can do more quickly and effectively. Established vendors are enhancing their products with improved support for social interactions. Several smaller vendors have experienced growth so far in 2008 and are gaining some traction within enterprises. A large number of small new vendors (including open-source products) are also competing for enterprise attention. Even though most vendors are still far from delivering mature, complete and dependable social software suites, each could be a good choice for a particular set of requirements and context. Differences in product strengths and questions around long-term viability make it more important to be clear about requirements and payback timescales.
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