Feature
Yesterday we took a look at the first part of the Forrester Wave: Cloud Strategies Of Online Collaboration Software Vendors, Q3 2012, report where we saw that many enterprises are concerned about the feasibility of using online collaboration services, Today, we will take a brief look at thecompanies and products that made it into thethis Wave.
Leading Trends
The interesting thing about this Forrester report is that despite all the talk in the market place about collaboration and even online collaboration there are only eight vendors that made it into the Wave, of which five made it into the Leaders segment: Box, Cisco Systems, Citrix Online, Google, IBM, Microsoft, Salesforce.com and Yammer.
It is hardly surprising, then, that this market displays all the hallmarks of one that is only starting to evolve. It is currently in a state of flux where vendors are still refining, tweaking and improving their offerings with a number of clear leaders and the rest following in their wake.
IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com
IBM, Microsoft, and Salesforce.com are leading the field, using their previous experience in the enterprise collaboration space to develop strong strategies for their online collaboration offerings. Both Microsoft and IBM have long histories in collaboration, while Salesforce is the pioneer in SaaS enterprise-grade collaboration, building on top of its customer relationship management and PaaS offerings.
Box, Yammer, Google
All three bring consumer experience to the enterprise with many collaboration service providers finding their way into the enterprise through knowledge workers who were adopting the tools to solve very specific problems. All three rode this wave with tools that were easy to use. Box and Yammer help potential customers to adapt to this kind of collaboration by providing easy integration into on-premises systems, while Google is making it easy to drop on-premises systems completely.
Cisco Systems and Citrix Online
These final two both possess collaboration portfolio’s that are still evolving. Both have evolved and are moving from purely conferencing services to fully fledged collaboration services. This has required a change in the way they think about collaboration and issues like integration, customization, access controls and encryption. Cisco is dealing with this under the WebEx brand while Citrix is beginning the collaboration journey as it integrates its recent ShareFile and Podio acquisitions.
Before diving into the report, Forrester recommends that potential customers look at all offerings and not just those that are in the Leaders segment. It is often the case that specific functionality will be found in the portfolio of vendors that fall outside the Leaders category.
Forrester Wave: Online Collaboration scores
Online Collaboration Leaders
IBM
IBM has been working for some time on integrating internal and external collaboration and appears to have found the right mix with the rebranded SmartCloud for Social Business offering. With it users can choose between a multitenant, and dedicated offering from a globally distributed data center. A significant part of its functionality can be accessed through most mobile devices and platforms, including iOS, Android and BlackBerry. Its Social Business Toolkit can both customized and extend its online portfolio.
Microsoft
We have seensince its release that Microsoft has been using Office 365 to ease enterprises into the cloud, although it is not clear how popular this has been as a product with anecdotal evidence suggesting the uptake might not be what Microsoft had originally hoped.
That said, Microsoft is using Office 365 to offer enterprises the choice of what they want to bring into the cloud and what they want to stay on premises. Microsoft continues to invest to bring its online offerings in step with its on-premises offerings. Microsoft is also investing heavily in meeting compliance standards like EU model clauses to reassure enterprises that Microsoft is compliant worldwide.
Salesforce.com
Since Dreamforce last year, Salesforce has been positioning Chatter as a key component of its social enterprise offerings. It built Chatter on its CRM and PaaS infrastructure, which means it comes with the same security, compliance and development capabilities that Salesforce already offers existing clients.
The other advantage of this is that it means Chatter is also compatible with Salesforce CRM and Force Apps. Salesforce is also quite vocal about the fact that it is continuing to develop and expand Chatter’s capabilities.
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Box
Box moved into the enterprise with considerable ease and now provides its file sharing and sync service to a whole list of large companies worldwide. It has worked on developing its data centers over the years and now touts the maturity of its data centers as one of its differentiators. With considerable funding behind it, it is expanding globally with a new office opened in London recently and a number of data centers in different geographies globally
It focuses on the mobile workforce with a number of mobile apps and has enabled the integration of a number of enterprise content management systems.
Yammer
Yammer is now a Microsoft company following its acquisition for US$1.2 billion. Forrester predicts that the buy will see Microsoft boosting Yammer’s data center operations and its global sales organization, as well as compliance and security issues. Yammer has a strategy built on integrations supporting business processes and announced an SAP integration earlier this year, to go along with its already established Salesforce and NetSuite integrations from previously.
Strong Performers
On top of the leaders, there are also three strong performers in the Wave this time around. They include:
Google Apps
Google Apps Premiere Edition entered the online collaboration market in 2007, with a US$ 50 per user price tag. This offering consists of a complete collaboration and productivity suite in the browser.With the development of Google Apps as a key business tool this is appealing to enterprises that are looking to move as many functions into the cloud as possible.
Cisco
Cisco is moving quickly in this space and has recently rebranded its entire online portfolio to carry the WebEx name and moved its social platform, Quad, into the cloud under the name WebEx Social. With a global webconferencing service already in place, it already has a robust set of global network of data centers.
Citrix
The Citrix Online Services Division is also changing. While it too also has webconferencing services in the shape of GoTo, it has also added to that with the recent acquisition of ShareFile, which offers file share, and Podio, which offers teaming capabilities. The expanded collaboration suite will take advantage of OSD’s robust global data center network.
While this Wave only has eight different enterprises, it belies a huge amount of activity in the online collaboration space that will, with no doubts, expand dramatically over the next year. We will be watching for the next Forrester Wave in the Online Collaboration space, but if you are interested in this one, which has a whole lot more information, you can buy it here.
