NEW DELHI, INDIA: So we thought that it would be quite a different and a very hard nut to crack before enterprises can see the 2.0 flavour playing it out successfully like the way it did for Web 2.0.

A Forrester Research some time back predicted that enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies is going to increase dramatically over the next four years. This increase will include more spending on social networking tools, mashups, and RSS, with the end result being a global enterprise market of $4.6 billion by the year 2013.

Yet another recent survey by other research outfit showed that 74 per cent of top IT helm in many organizations had no idea of what Enterprise 2.0 means or how can it be meaningfully applied.

Add to that the backdrop of corporate silos, interoperability dysfunctions between compartmentalized ERP modules or issues related to people and productivity, employees’ relative sluggish interest for web 2.0’s use at work when compared to normal social networking; IT Manager’s ROI travails etc; and it looks like it would take some time before enterprises don the 2.0 wardrobe.

But experts like Dhruv Singhal - Director, Sales Consulting, Fusion Middleware, Oracle India point that, the progress is already visible and it won’t be too long to wait for the new suites.

To start with, on maturity and adequacy of standards, he feels that interoperability and web services standards are coming out quite well, and the same is evident between Oracle and other players’ portals.

As to the issue of adverse impact on employee productivity with the introduction of 2.0 taste at workplaces, Singhal singles out how Knowledge management, project management etc make the processes more sticky, effective and attractive.
“Yes, about people issues, people are a lot concerned about the security aspect. So security and monitoring should be in place and the software has to manage that part nicely.”

He also sees enterprises taking off on the 2.0 lane, even in India. “Telecom organizations for instance are going a big way in areas like billing, CRM, multiple back-end integration etc. Also, lot of CRM, ERP SCM modules are expanding functionalities in web services, which in turn makes integration in a single window much easier besides aiding in consumption of these apps on a single portal.” Mash-ups in the back-end area would be a trend next, if he points it right.

About Oracle’s own portfolio in particular, he tells that the 2.0 direction is quite visible in areas like web center portal, new Ajax features, content management features, integration of back-end applications through business processes or web services, business process integration, products in index management and a lot many wiki, blog or collaboration related features on course.
“Oracle offers the industry's most complete, open, and manageable enterprise portal platform. It has Oracle WebCenter Suite 11g and Oracle WebCenter Services 11g at its strategic core, and the portfolio simplifies the development of secure Enterprise 2.0 enabled portals, composite applications, Websites, etc. WebLogic Portal, WebCenter Interaction and Oracle Portal can be enhanced with interoperable products such as Oracle WebCenter Services and Oracle Universal Content Management. Then we have Enterprise 2.0 services that include social computing services, personal productivity services, online awareness and communications, content integration, and Web analytics.”

If a report indicator in 2008 augurs it correct, over the next five years, Web 2.0 expenditure will grow at a compound annual rate of 43 per cent, and the top spending category will be social networking tools.

Tools like Awareness, Communispace, and Jive Software have been cited as top on radar besides social networking, the next-largest category RSS, followed by blogs and wikis, and then mashups.

Now would IT consumers be as gung-ho as the netizen-next-door is a question that will answer it self in due course. Because disrupting the legacy or traditional IT environment won’t be that easy as many may choose to stick with their existing software from the big, traditional vendors, more so, as many have started integrating Web 2.0 into their offerings.

Microsoft's SharePoint, with wikis, blogs, and RSS technologies in their collaboration suite and also IBM with social networking and mashup tools via their Lotus Connections and Lotus Mashups products; or SAP Business Suite with social networking and widgets are examples enough.

In 2008, executives responding to McKinsey’s second annual survey on the business use of Web 2.0 technologies, including wikis, blogs, social networks, and mash-ups, were asked which of these social and interactive tools their companies have adopted and for which purposes, what they are doing to encourage adoption, and how satisfied they are with their use of these tools.

They were also asked to what extent they are using such new technologies to interact with their employees, customers, and suppliers—and, ultimately, how important these tools are to their companies’ competitive edge.
This survey revealed continuing investments in Web 2.0. Companies deriving business value from these tools were seen shifting from using them experimentally to adopting them as part of a broader business practice.

Do you think Enterprise 2.0 is going to be as happening as web 2.0? If no, why?