Welcome to the fast-growing world of work media, a class of social tools oriented toward the needs of enterprises. Their emergence is due to the shifting expectations of an increasingly social workforce and the sense that older approaches to work like email are arguably approaching obsolescence. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Microsoft’s reported deal to buy Yammer for its enterprise social networking savvy isn’t done yet, but the move — despite what many see as a too-hefty price tag — could make sense. Pairing Yammer with the Microsoft Office juggernaut could be a winner. Read more »
Media issues like advertising and discovery along with commerce dominated the activity in social and real-time Web technologies during the first quarter. Google raised some hackles, Facebook responded to demands from traditional advertisers, and Yahoo got a new chief executive. Read more in the full report. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Fans of enterprise social networking tools tout their ability to break down silos and pierce the executive bubble. But as hot a topic as these tools are, not everyone is a fan. Red Hat CEO Jim Whitehurst thinks they’re “garbage,” claiming you can’t buy collaboration. Read more »
Much of today’s business communication activity still happens in email, but that presents a problem for the current on-the-go workforce. This report, based on a recent survey of business managers, highlights some of the problematic areas around business content collaboration and provides options for working through them. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
The fourth quarter may have lacked a dominating big-event product announcement like Q3’s Facebook platform extension or Q2’s unveiling of Google+, but the NewNet world continued to buzz along. In the battle for mind share, everyone wanted to be a platform. Meanwhile, consumer and social technologies continued to gain momentum, and new vehicles for content and service discovery presented both challenges and opportunities for NewNet companies. And it is hard to ignore the overcrowded but growing world of daily deals. This quarterly report analyzes these trends and others, and it also provides a near-term outlook of trends, technologies and companies to watch in 2012. Companies mentioned in the report include Amazon, Facebook and Socialcast. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Don’t expect the pace of change in web technologies to slow down in 2012. The web is far from dead. Social media may have anointed one huge player in Facebook, but even if there is little room for a start-from-scratch general-purpose social network, there are several companies creating useful alternative social graphs. Companies can leverage key technologies and trends in 2012 to earn revenue and gain share, whether that’s by leveraging HTML5 for rich cross-platform experiences, doing heavy data analysis or integrating collaboration tools across businesses.Companies mentioned in this report include Dropbox, Groupon, Twitter and Zynga. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
New research from Forrester doesn’t just reveal that consumer phones are invading the enterprise. It also confirms some realities we see under way at offices every day and undercuts other so-called trends often mentioned by media cheerleaders (including GigaOM). What are they? Read more »
Social media is playing an increasing role in enterprise IT, with companies like Jive Software and Telligent jockeying with IBM, Microsoft and Cisco to tap into corporate IT spending. Today, they build social platforms customers use for both employee collaboration and consumer marketing objectives. Vendors need ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
One of the things social media marketing will need if it’s going to live up to its aggressive $5 billion spending forecast is more differentiation between marketing and collaboration platforms. Companies like Jive Software, Lithium, Mzinga and Telligent offer social network platforms aimed at both employees ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Feed-based UIs are powerful because they encourage frequent usage and participation. They’re becoming one of the most important ways to present information, and are critical areas of competition in social networking and ... Read more at GigaOM Pro »
IT managers now face a new challenge in the enterprise: the significant presence of a new generation, the Millennials, in today’s digital workplace. These young employees were born in the 1980s or later; they were raised with ever-present mobile phones and ubiquitous online access and social media, and they often demand access to those services and devices while at work. This report, the first in a two-part series, surveys Millennials about their use of technology at work, with a particular focus on how they communicate and learn and what they expect in regard to technology support. We aim to assist IT and tech-support management by pointing out the opportunities Millennials present and also the potential pitfalls. Companies mentioned in this report include Facebook, Google and Twitter. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Jive Software has announced it has acquired Proximal Labs, a supplier of machine learning and data mining software. The move shows Jive’s intent to expand its efforts at mining the enterprise social graph to analyze user behavior in order to assist companies in becoming more effective. Read more »
Many collaboration tools have very similar feature sets. But to find a really good app, you need to look beyond the basic features of a particular tool and delve more deeply into the value, experience and knowledge that its vendor brings to the table. Read more »
The enterprise collaboration space has entered an exciting new phase of collaboration. New software and applications are coming to market, as are new concepts for how to work and communicate in the knowledge age. From consumer-grade apps like those from Box.net and Huddle to software from long-established players like Microsoft and Oracle, these tools are taking collaboration technology past the traditional IT decision-making process and changing the way we approach the workday. Additional companies in this report include Skype, Huddle, Jive, Moxie and Yammer. For a full list of companies, and to read the full report, sign up for a free trial. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Technology and organizational trends are driving the demand for apps in the enterprise, and there is no better time than now to consider an enterprise mobility strategy that co-opts consumerization. In this report, the second in a two-part series, we examine a new category of transient and persistent lightweight apps that will number in the thousands and run across the range of corporate and Bring-Your-Own devices, creating new opportunity IT can seize to make “Workplace 2.0” a reality. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Real-time communication and collaboration in the enterprise represents a significant shift in how employees, partners and customers interact and collaborate to drive organizational performance. The growth and acceptance of so-called “Enterprise 2.0” platforms and applications promise to break down closed communication and collaboration loops by moving discussions and data access from email, content management and rigid process applications to activity streams, wikis and API-based data access. This report looks at the history of this transition, the major players involved, opportunity and challenges for vendors in the space, and profiles the efforts of major enterprise collaboration tools to add real-time tools. Read more »
Nike’s Shambhala initiative, which kicked off in 1999, aimed to transform Nike’s approach to social and environmental issues. A series of workshops brought together sustainability gurus, speakers and more than 50 managers from across Nike’s many divisions to discuss ways to push the envelope on internal […] Read more »
The enterprise social software market is emerging as one of the fastest growing areas of enterprise applications. As a young market it is full of small and dynamic players but existing enterprise vendors in the content management, communications, and CRM markets are taking notice. Social software is poised to not only disrupt existing enterprise application markets but also organizations and markets by flattening information flows.
As users shift to new modes of communicating on the open web, they are pulling these new models into the enterprise and ushering in cultural and organizational change. This report covers the underlying technological trends, the market and its drivers, and a competitive overview of the vendors. Read more at GigaOM Pro »
Web Workers often face a dilemma when trying to collaborate with co-workers, that is having access to the electronic tools to access and collaborate with team members. Sometimes we’re given great collaboration tools like Microsoft SharePoint or similar enterprise collaboration tools. However these present hurdles, namely […] Read more »
