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.
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