enterprise 2.0

Do I look ugly in this open-source license?

A bad economy is good for open source, goes the increasingly conventional wisdom. However, while it's undoubtedly a good time to be in the market with a low-cost, high-value alternative to proprietary software, there are tell-tale signs that the recession isn't blessing all open-source companies equally.

For example, at the Enterprise 2.0 conference on Tuesday Socialtext founder Ross Mayfield declared, in the words of a conference attendee via Twitter, that Socialtext's first quarter "sucked" and that its "pipeline collapsed." Socialtext, once described as a highflier in a "sizzling market," has … Read more

Jive and the battle for the social enterprise

This was originally posted at ZDNet's Between the Lines.

Jive Software wants to be the backbone for all things collaborative in the enterprise, but it could run ultimately into tough competition from the likes of Microsoft, Oracle, and IBM.

On Tuesday, Jive launched Social Business Software 3.0, a suite it calls an enterprise-class armada of collaborative apps. Jive SBS 3.0, available by the end of the first quarter, is designed to focus on employee engagement, marketing and sales, customer support, and innovation and to foster collaboration internally and externally.

Jive SBS 3.0 will also add centralized … Read more

Enterprise 2.0's pricing model is open source 1.0

Schlumberger manager Julien le Nestour offers an innovative new pricing model to drive "enterprise 2.0" software like Twitter-for-the-enterprise: instead of offering volume discounts, start with a superlow up-front charge, and scale up fees as more users start using the software.

I have news for Le Nestour: enterprise IT already has this pricing model widely in use. It's called open source.

Reading Le Nestour's description of his proposed model sounds exactly like the pricing models used by Openbravo, Pentaho, Alfresco, Hyperic, and others:

Instead of charging less per user, as more accounts are purchased, vendors should … Read more

Mosso revamps cloud service tools

Mosso, the cloud computing division of hosting provider Rackspace, has added a new Web-based control panel and a behind-the-scenes provisioning system to its Hosting Cloud service.

The company said Wednesday the control panel makes it easier for users to set up and manage hosted applications. It includes a new Web-based file manager that gives users access to stored data so that they can create and decompress archives and change access permissions more easily.

A snapshot tool, within the control panel, lets users access and reinstate previous versions of files in the case of accidental overwrite, the company said.

The provisioning … Read more

SAP chief: Big software isn't going away

While Marc Benioff may rail against the status quo in the enterprise software business, not all software buyers will join in the chorus, according to one of Benioff's chief competitors.

Web-based business software sold by companies such as Benioff's Salesforce.com will likely augment, not replace, large, complex enterprise systems, SAP Chief Executive Henning Kagermann told The Wall Street Journal on Tuesday.

Kagermann said that while some of the main selling points for Salesforce and other Web-based services make sense--namely, better usability and productivity--corporate buyers are a notoriously conservative bunch.

A slicker user interface and easier access to … Read more

The Enterprise 2.0 mishmash of muddle

I didn't attend the Enterprise 2.0 Conference this year, but judging by Jeff Whatcott's commentary, I'm not sure I missed much.

It would appear that the Enterprise 2.0 world is still recycling the same froth in an attempt to stand out. Here's what Whatcott had to say:

I spent some time checking out the competition to benchmark our messaging and functionality. I was struck by how thoroughly undifferentiated the pitches were. Everyone was giving essentially the same demo, talking about the same functionality and use cases.

Internally, I heard from Jean Barmash on the Alfresco consulting team who echoed Jeff's comments:

Walking around the exhibition floor, it looked like everybody was offering very similar stuff--big focus on "communities"--creating them, managing them, etc.

It feels like we're in the early stages of Enterprise 2.0. Let's call it Enterprise 1.8 where everyone is showing the right slideware and demos, but few, if any, really know how to put it all to productive business use.

Until the money steps in, I think we're going to remain in a curious limbo where "shiny baubles" (a colleague's favorite term) get rolled out widely but for which few pay because no one on the enterprise side has really connected the dots between community, user-generated content, and enterprise productivity/business value.… Read more

JavaOne: Oracle shows off Web 2.0 mashup

Consumer Web 2.0 applications are influencing--and changing--how business systems are developed.

That was the message from Oracle on Wednesday at the JavaOne conference in San Francisco, where Oracle executives Thomas Kurian and Peter Moskowitz showed how to link disparate applications into a cohesive order entry system.

Call it "enterprise 2.0" if you'd like. But Salesforce.com and others will argue that this form of business mashup has been around for years.

Still, the Oracle demo is yet further proof that linking, tagging and other basic technologies borrowed from the consumer Web are making it vastly … Read more

Web 2.0 gets to work in Boston

Our buttoned-down and moneyed East Coast friends might want to check out the upcoming Enterprise 2.0 Conference from June 9 to 12 in Boston, where businesses wonks will be arguing about how to get real work done with Web tools. Like the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco last month, this conference will feature a Launchpad session that pits a few Web 2.0 companies against each other in rapid-fire pitches.

Right now, the Conference is asking for video submissions for the Launchpad, and you can check out the entries as they come in on the Launchpad page. … Read more

Micro-productivity: man vs. machine, divergence vs. convergence

According to a McKinsey & Company study of US economic activity, "Raising the productivity of employees whose jobs can't be automated is the next big performance challenge." The study argues that "as more companies come to specialize in core activities and outsource the rest, they have greater need for workers who can interact with co-workers, partners, and vendors," supported by highly personalized organizing and communication tools. 40 percent of labor activity, says McKinsey, comes not from making things or from traditional transactions but from what the consultancy calls the "Interaction Economy," which it … Read more

Jive Software takes in $15 million to run with Web 2.0 collaboration

Fueled by a round of venture capital, Jive Software is pushing into the corporate technology market with lightweight Web collaboration software.

The company is expected to announce next week that Sequoia Capital has invested $15 million into Jive Software which has been self-funded and profitable until now.

Jive, perhaps best known for its online forum software, is focusing the company on Clearspace, a product first written about here and commercially introduced earlier this year.

The software is meant to be a lightweight alternative to more structured document management applications like Microsoft's SharePoint. With Clearspace, end users can start wikis, … Read more