Workgroup and Enterprise Collaboration

Market Issues

We feel that the previously lacklustre market response to collaboration has little to do with the technology itself, which can offer more capabilities to adopters and deliver various cost-related benefits. Most organisations are simply not in a position to risk investment in new technology where the benefits and returns are not clear. This has contributed to a more realistic and moderate uptake for the area; this means smaller initial solutions with a focus of generating rapid returns. However, as we move forward, we are seeing more tightly packaged solutions targeted precisely at delivering benefits and ROI.

Our view on vendor ratings, as indicated by our Product Performance Table, is that no single vendor is currently deserved of an Outperform position. None of the solutions we have reviewed combines all of the required capabilities and functionality to support Workgroup and Enterprise Collaboration. However, we believe that the market is about to experience a significant shift, which in turn will allow market adoption to occur in a very short space of time - from 2004-2006. The principal reason for this is that Microsoft and IBM will release fully integrated unified messaging solutions, allowing, for example, e-mail and IM to be truly integrated into a single environment. Presence awareness will be a boon to the market, and we will see the availability of applications that have built-in presence capabilities. This will revolutionise ad hoc collaboration. Thus, at this point, IBM and Microsoft will clearly outperform the rest of the market, due to their technical dominance in e-mail and messaging and the barriers to entry they create.

Der komplette Bericht kann bei der Butler Group bestellt werden.