Enterprise social s/w revenue to be $769mn in 2011

NEW DELHI, INDIA: Worldwide enterprise social software revenue is on pace to total $664.4 million in 2010, a 14.9 percent increase from 2009 revenue of $578.2 million, according to Gartner Inc.

The market is poised for continued growth in 2011, when revenue is forecast to reach $769.2 million, up 15.7 percent from 2010.

Enterprise social software enables participation through formal and informal interactions and aggregates these interactions to reflect the collective attitudes, dispositions and knowledge of the participants.

Technologies include blogs, communities, discussion forums, expertise location, feeds and syndication, social bookmarks, wikis, and integrated platforms/suites.

"The social software market is evolving in response to the demand for flexible environments in which participants can connect, create, share, and find people and information relevant to their work," said Tom Eid, research vice president, Gartner. "Social software improves the connectedness of workers, promotes collaboration and helps capture informal knowledge."

Social software technologies can create business value by driving changes in interpersonal interactions; improving operational efficiency and effectiveness; raising organizational performance; and leveraging internal and external social networks.

"Success is to be found in managing the information and relationships in support of business initiatives and not the simple deployment of technology," said Eid. "One of the major goals is to capitalize on community involvement to drive higher leverage and productivity."