In a couple of reports released today, Forrester Research makes projections on the future of enterprise web technologies. Forrester predicts that social networking tools and internal wikis “will have the greatest impact on workplace collaboration”. It is bullish too on forums and RSS, which Forrester claims “have a future in the enterprise but are currently underused”. Mashups are also mentioned in the report – previously they’d claimed it would be a $700 million market by 2013. As for which technologies will decline, Forrester says that podcasts have “a limited future as an enterprise tool”.
Forrester is also skeptical about microblogging tools in the enterprise – such as Twitter, Socialcast and Yammer. The report rather cynically suggested that “microblogs appeal to both the egocentrism and the voyeurism of Web 2.0 aficionados.” Nevertheless Forrester said that it expects enterprise microblogs to “become a feature, not a standalone product category”.
Oliver Young, an analyst at Forrester Research, stated that despite there being a lot of buzz about the consumer market for web 2.0 applications, “the greatest opportunity today for vendors is in the business-to-business collaboration space”.
For the technologies that Forrester is most bullish on, social networking and wikis, the report stated that the “cultural resistance” to social networks will “eventually break, allowing workers to connect with like-minded colleagues and enabling a collaboration channel that previously didn’t exist in the enterprise.” On wikis, Forrester noted that users have already reported success with wiki projects and it expects this to grow even more. Wikis are most successful, said Forrester, when sponsored by business leaders and connected to business processes.
Forrester estimated in April that the enterprise 2.0 market will hit $4.6 billion by 2013. They also predicted in October that enterprise 2.0 apps will fall dramatically in price. So while the overall value of enterprise web applications will increase, the amount vendors charge for them is expected to decline over time.
