Comments on: Enterprise 2.0 in 2010: Twitter / SharePoint / Google Wave / Facebook Tailwinds Fuel Growth

By: jimtybur

jimtybur — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 20:25:36 +0000

Thx for the comment Susan. I resonate to your data in slide 19 of the second link which shows 58% for LOB vs 42% for IT when it comes to who is driving enterprise 2.0 in a company. I think another 2010 prediction we’ll see is that this share will continues to shift to the LOB user and away from IT.

By: Susan Scrupski

Susan Scrupski — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 17:23:03 +0000

I did a predictions deck for 2009, and will probably do one for 2010. Got a few things wrong, but on balance, I think I am tracking positive. http://bit.ly/15Buyo

One of the major items I got wrong is how Enterprise 2.0 is not being driven exclusively by IT, but rather by lines of business. In fact, in early survey data we’ve collected, the best case studies are actually driven by LOBs. Oddly enough, it has not thwarted SharePoint’s penetration in the enterprise. With the introduction of SharePoint 2010, this may become a point of contention, as IT will want to argue in favor of an IT-driven alternative.

See some early adoption data in this preso: http://bit.ly/3kaw1l

By: jimtybur

jimtybur — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 05:16:37 +0000

Thx very much for the comment Chris, as well as the pointer to that story. I had read about the Twitter docs getting stolen but never read this post about how it was actually executed. I just skimmed through it and found it fascinating and frightening at the same time but also not surprising. The post’s concluding statement, “So for a start, reset those passwords and don’t use the same passwords for different services. Don’t use password recovery questions that can easily be answered with a simple web search (an easy solution is to answer those questions falsely). And just in general be paranoid about data security.”, seems to be sound, common sense advice. With that said, as the article points out, most internet users are probably lazier than we should be when it comes to web security so this conclusion, while common sense, forms sage advice and should be adhered to.

To answer your specific question, I’m a firm believer in the superior value of SaaS / cloud services and don’t believe there should be a cutoff based on company size when considering SaaS vs. internal tools. The main exceptions typically come up around compliance and regulatory restrictions often seen with banks or hospitals. As an example of a large Google Apps SaaS deployment, my wife, for instance, works at Genentech and I witnessed vicariously their deployment of Google Apps to their 15,000+ employees last year quite successfully (see and hear more here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y_hiMzIhU0o).

At the end of the day, I think there will always be security challenges and hackers looking to exploit them, whether for on prem apps or cloud based SaaS apps and companies will need to factor this risk in when weighing the cost / benefits of moving to the cloud based on their specific needs and situation. In the meantime, Trinity Ventures has a couple of portfolio companies that are designed to help thwart hackers and protect end users that may be worth checking out especially when it comes to identify theft (IDAnalytics – http://www.idanalytics.com/) and password hacking (IDVault – http://www.idvault.com/index.php).

By: Enterprise 2.0 in 2010: Twitter / SharePoint / Google Wave / Facebook Tailwinds Fuel Growth « IronGiving « Fredzimny's Blog

Sat, 03 Oct 2009 04:41:48 +0000

[...] Found at http://irongiving.com/2009/10/02/enterprise-2-0-in-2010 [...]

By: Christopher Nolan

Christopher Nolan — Sat, 03 Oct 2009 03:44:15 +0000

With the recent hack of Twitter’s Google Apps account (http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/07/19/the-anatomy-of-the-twitter-attack/) I think some companies may be reticent to store their data “in the cloud.” Though a part of this hack was an employee’s lack of security, it exposed a gaping hole in the security model of growing companies. They store their data on publicly accessible networks that only require guessing passwords (you know the username from their email) to gain access. When companies reach a certain size they should look to bring this data in house. When it becomes valuable, monetarily or socially (a hacker wants cred) companies should look at the security model of their providers. Twitter was a great example because of a company that waited too long. Nobody was going to get rich but the hacker got notoriety and Twitter got egg on their face.

On the other hand, startups and smaller enterprises may find exactly what they need in an enterprise 2.0 provider. It saves time and money to have a ready-built infrastructure for hosting colaborative and interactive tools that probably increase innovation and productivity.

The 21st century knowledge worker knows how to use facebook, twitter and wikipedia. They know the value of the tools and can adapt them to the enterprise. I just think that there is a certain time at which you bring those tools in house. You point out that Sharepoint and Wave have their negative points but at a certain point you should go with something internal. Do you agree? If so, is there any easy way to know when?