Social Enterprise Software Race Picks Up Pace

Posted by Nick O'Neill on October 6th, 2008 10:56 AM

Today I.B.M. announced the release of Bluehouse, the company’s workplace collaboration software. Whether you are using the word “collaboration”, “social”, or the phrase “Enterprise 2.0″, it is all describing the same thing. There is a huge shift towards services which integrate communication and productivity tools making it easier for employees to access information and improving the organization’s overall productivity.

Just last week I wrote that Dustin Moskovitz, co-founder of Facebook, was leaving the company to start a new enterprise software company. If that’s not a sign that things are heating up in the enterprise space, I’m not sure what is. As we continue to learn from our experiences with social networks, companies are rapidly trying to figure out how to adapt these new tools into their organizations.

The new Bluehouse product includes a web-based meeting tool, a social network, a document sharing tool which includes tagging for quick access, a task management solution, a forms wizard, a charting tool, and a chat application. Ultimately the product isn’t revolutionary but it adds a lot of features that many enterprise software products don’t include.

The most important takeaway from today’s Bluehouse announcement is simply that the shift toward enterprise social software is continuing and rapidly gaining momentum. If there was a major opportunity for web developers building social applications, this would most definitely be it. The best part of enterprise software is that companies pay for it!

Yes, you can make money by selling social software rather than giving it away and relying on advertising revenue!

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MartinEdic 1 year ago 1 point
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Given that advertising doesn't work too well in social media I'd hope that companies offering social media tools are not thinking in that direction when developing revenue models. People will pay when they can see a return and the return on social media strategies is not that difficult to measure as long as you understand that there are social assets like reputation. They're not new but their value has become highlighted as we gain the ability to listen to global conversations about brands in real time. You can see reputations form, grow and/or become diluted or damaged and you can enter the conversation. This is all measurable.

And isn't it interesting how web 2.0 the Bluehouse site is? It looks very 2007! I like the non-corporate messaging a lot.

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