5 Enterprise 2.0 forecasts for 2011

It's not very interesting to read IT analysts' forecasts for the next year. All of them are predicting further growth of cloud IT infrastructures, the increasing number of mobile apps, SaaS-service, further implementation of social tools into all business applications, further integration of the intranet systems with external social networks. Thank you, Captain Obvious. Unlike them, we'll focus on less global, but more interesting events that are expected to tale place next year:




1. Social Business Intelligence





Enterprise clones of Facebook and Twitter, social CRM (which is now quickly implemented) - of course give employees a lot of useful information. But with it they create a lot of noise (social spam) that reduce work effectiveness. That is why there is a strong need in social business intelligence technologies that will filter the social noise and provide each employee the most important and relevant information. In addition, we expect that social Email-technologies will find new ways of filtering e-mail spam.





2. Re-imagine CMS








First, we expect the boom of Site-as-a-Service solutions. Perhaps the leading online office providers (Google, Zoho, Microsoft) will pay more attention to this subject, and make the creation of a small business site as affordable and necessary thing, as the registration email-address. Second, company Web-presence already can't be limited to a corporate site. Companies should benefit on using social networks (Facebook, Foursquare, Groupon ...) to find and retain customers. Therefore, corporate CMS will become able to manage the content, distributed over many sites on the Social Web.





3. Video calls on tablets and TV








As known, in 2011 the iPad 2 with front camera (and a lot of other tablets) will be unveiled. And these will be ideal devices for mobile video calls. At hotels and airports we'll see people comfortably sitting on chairs, holding tablets in their hands and talking to someone. Moreover, thanks to Skype and Google, affordable (and free) video calls will come to HDTVs. Therefore, in many offices we'll see common TVs, which will be used to contact with branch offices, partners, home-based staff or those people sitting with tablets at hotels and airports.





4. Webified communications





This year Google turned GMail into the unified communications tool by adding Google Voice. Now you can make and receive calls in a browser. Skype also announced the Web-based client. We think that this trend will become a mainstream in 2011. As a result, VoIP and video calls will become more affordable and popular. In addition, we expect a large spread of such tools as "calls via site", site voice menus and on-site video-receptions. Perhaps we'll also see the implementation of Facebook Messages idea - the integration of email, social, VoIP, video communications around discussions.




5. Microsoft SaaS to take on partners





In 2011, Microsoft Office 365 (along with Dynamics CRM Online) will become available dlobally. I.e. Exchange, Sharepoint, Lync, Dynamics CRM will be available as SaaS services and compete with Microsoft's own partners that host these solutions or implement them for clients. In theory this should lead to lower prices and SaaS market push. But for Microsoft - it's a political decision, so progress will be slowed down.

See also: Top 10 Office suites