Enterprise 2.0: All Social Software is Not Created Equal

By Barb Mosher (@barbmosher) Aug 12, 2010

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You may not completely agree, but some people say that SharePoint 2007 was a disruptive collaboration technology. Was it the best solution on the market for enterprise collaboration? Probably not. But it did show us a different way of sharing. And it did bring forward a number of new solutions for the enterprise commonly called social software.

Social Software — A Market on the Move

Jive Software is one of a number of social software solutions getting a lot of attention lately, and it's not just from the analysts. You only have to read the news to hear about a new funding announcement or a new customer win and it's pretty obvious social software — or social business software — is becoming (perhaps has become) a required technology for organizations.

With Jive's recent funding of US$ 30 million, Atlassian's funding of US$ 60 million and Squarespace's US$ 38.5 million (just to name a few), we are starting to see a lot late stage equity funding that, according to NewsGator CEO J.B Holston, this market warrants.

From Tony Zingale, Jive Software's CEO:

“Social business is a $5B market, growing at a rapid rate. It is the new way to do business. Collaboration and community are the new spots for innovation. Every major software company in the world, including Google, has to figure out how to enable the new social enterprise. Many will face roadblocks because technology alone won’t drive adoption of social in the enterprise. You need solutions tailored from the ground up that radically change the way we do business, not just bolt on to the old way. ”

The question is, if Ted Schlein, KPCB Managing Partner (one of the ventures firm that invested in Jive), thinks social business software is the "most important enterprise software category in a decade" then why are we still facing daily challenges implementing it effectively?

All Social Software is Not Created Equal

Let's take a minute and put aside the question of who actually coined the term social business/social business software, because who really cares anyway. Let's instead address the fact that all social software is not the same, and that software for the business is, and should be, different from that offered in the consumer market.

The first stages of social business software that we saw were often referred to as "Facebook for the enterprise". There were also the beginning stages of community software that included blogs, discussion groups and other basic Web 2.0 capabilities.

While all of these capabilities still remain in most solutions, they have been greatly enhanced and extended. Along with them, we now see newer functionality, like microblogging, rich activity streams, integration with backend systems and more.

Driven By the Consumer Web

Remember how I said that SharePoint 2007 was a disruptive technology that changed the way we worked and collaborated in the organization? Well it may have started this chain of events, but it doesn't drive it any longer. SharePoint 2010, while rich in social capabilities, has not lead the market in terms of being there first and setting the expectations.

Today's expectations are being set by the consumer market. This is what Holston sees. The trouble is, the pace at which consumer's expectations are changing is quick and vendors are constantly trying to keep up.