Dan Farber: Office 2.0 meets the enterprise
October 12 2006
Via Bob Sutor, I was definitely curious what was being said about Office 2.0 / Web 2.0 "versus" technologies like Lotus Notes (and MS) at the Office 2.0 conference...
The approach is built around online applications with collaboration at the core. It is evolutionary rather than revolutionary. According to Bob Sutor, IBM, all of the pieces are already out there, and it's not a deep computer science problem. The challenge is to make it lightweight enough while providing what users need in to do their work.I am definitely curious why Farber writes that small companies or startups won't get Notes. But of course that's going to bring up the old discussion about IBM marketing to small businesses.... :-)
Most of the new crop of applications are not breaking any new user interface ground, other than using AJAX to make it more like a desktop client. Integrating mashups into the user experience is where the most interesting work is happening.
Of course, companies will differ in how they adopt 2.0 technologies. IBM has thousands of internal bloggers, but also is standardized on its Lotus Notes for email and collaboration. Any small company or startup, however, isn't going to think about getting a Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes server--they will get a Web-based, open sourced solution or uses Google's services.
Sutor, speaking for IBM with over 300,000 employees, said, "Once you get to a certain size, you want to have the services hosted inside the firewall." It will take many turns of the crank for larger companies to trust any vital data living outside their firewalls. When you put money in a bank, there is the possibility of the bank getting robbed. You might lose some money (hopefully it's federally insured). When you put sensitive data in the cloud, you have the potential to lose your company if the servers are breached.
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- 2
Stu Downes http://www.sdownes.co.uk | 10/13/2006 12:35:43 AM
I think it would be interesting to see some survey results from small startups to see what the environment of choice it today. I'll assume most startups are 10 people or less. I have a sneaking suspicion that most will be using a hosted service of some nature, or an open source system, or even a hosted web 2.0 environment.
It would also be interesting to survey some companies maturing and expanding to see how they cope with any limitations of their incumbent environment and the issues of scaling.
- 3
Michael http://www.hinkyminky.net | 10/13/2006 1:30:58 AM
a "Lotus Notes Server"...God ! It's more than 10 years since it's called "Domino". M. Sutor should do a "web2.0" facelift to his vocabulary ;)
- 4
Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 10/13/2006 5:34:08 AM
@1: what Richard said. In this world, small companies won't buy Exchange or Domino; they'll use Google. They won't have their own backup systems; they'll use Amazon S3 or Carbonite. They won't buy phone service; instead, they'll use Skype. And instead of renting office space, they'll do business out of the local Starbucks. Nice work if you can get it.
- 5
Karen | 10/13/2006 8:55:32 AM
What @2 and @4 said, totally. You don't see that as the case, Ed?
- 6
Paul Robichaux http://www.robichaux.net/blog | 10/13/2006 9:43:16 AM
@5: sorry, my irony didn't come through. I should have inserted the word "imaginary" (or maybe "forecasted") between "this" and "world". While it's true that some small businesses will entirely rely on free hosted services, it's just hard for me to credit that with much business sense. You have no control over the data, no visibility into its use, no guarantees or SLAs... but it's free. I guess it depends on your estimation of what your business data is worth.
- 7
david racicot | 10/13/2006 11:43:05 AM
I think that (unfortunately) most small businesses will go MS because that's what they see in the computer store. I'd say they are unlikely to understand @2. That's just not real.
- 8
Charles Robinson http://cubert-codepoet.blogspot.com | 10/13/2006 12:34:34 PM
@6 - I'm in the process of helping two friends start up separate small businesses. They don't have the funding to invest in commercial software, but they also aren't willing to use free hosted services, either. That leaves open source solutions, and there are a number of really good ones out there.
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Karen | 10/13/2006 1:15:43 PM
@6 - Sorry, I didn't catch your irony. I guess it depends on what comes to mind when you say start-up up. The type of business, and the age of the person that comes to mind.
When I think start-up, I think the guys who started YouTube (in their garage). They're young. And they have barely any money. They have a payroll of less than 5. Again... this is just my image.
So with that in mind, I agree with what Dan Farber said: "Any small company or startup, however, isn't going to think about getting a Microsoft Exchange or Lotus Notes server--they will get a Web-based, open sourced solution or uses Google's services."
Now a couple of years, more income and employees later... THEN I see them knocking on IBM's and/or MS's doors for help.
- 10
Richard Schwartz http://www.rhs.com/poweroftheschwartz | 10/13/2006 2:07:45 PM
@7: It's not so much what they see in the computer store. It's what they see in the flyers that come in the mail once a month from the local tech college, community college, adult ed program, etc. They all have Microsoft cert. courses, ergo any small businessman knows that there are plenty of people in his neighborhood who are paying their own way to get themselves trained on Microsoft technology.
Poor horse. Will I ever be able to stop beating you?
- 11
david racicot | 10/16/2006 10:16:08 AM
I'm sure the shopping cart ad would be very effective (Ed you asked for it :-) )
He also says they won't get Exchange. Seems to me he's predicting a sea change for the future based on a fad that hasn't even really emerged as a blip on the market share radar screen yet. I'm not saying it can't happen, but I think it's a little early to be counting those Chicken 2.0's.