Some of Dion’s Hinchcliffe’s Predictions for Enterprise Web 2.0 in 2008

Here is a cross post from the Fast Forward blog that I wanted to share with you. I will be doing fewer cross posts from Fast Foward now now that I am also writing on the AppGap but I am interested in any reactions to this one. When Dion talks about enterprise 2.0, we should all listen so here are his 12 Predictions for Enterprise Web 2.0 in 2008. Overall he writes, “The driving forces for change this year will be the aging of existing IT systems, the rise of up-and-coming new approaches such as highly capable new Web-based applications, mashups, collective intelligence powered business software, Web-oriented architectures, and last but certainly not least, social software.” I certainly agree and have written so on the FAST Forward blog (e.g., Where is Internal IT Going?).

I want to mention a few and add a few thoughts (predictions his words, thoughts are mine - he is not responsible):

4. Unstructured information from blogs and wikis will proliferate, driving demand for solutions to extract and consolidate business information. I think this is where what I see as a new wave of enterprise applications and platforms will become more prominent. I have written about a number of them (see Enterprise 2.0 Tools: Update on Descriptions and Reviews from 2007). These platforms go beyond blogs and wikis to integrate content across channels and eliminate or reduce siloed information.

5. A large number of enterprise intranets will get social networking capabilities. Microsoft and IBM’s offerings have the beginnings of it. Many of the enterprise 2.0 vendors feature it, while making their offerings more of a platform to serve as an intranet. Then others have even turned to social networking as their intranet and Worklight provides a secure front end to help others make this move.

6. Enterprise mashups will make their appearance in a widespread way but won’t take off big, yet – Here is some more from Dion as I was interested is his reasoning: “we’ll see mashup tools being deployed this year by early adopter enterprises and used by IT departments and power users… average business worker will need time, possibly several years, to absorb the possibilities of this new model for personal business application development but it’s highly likely we’ll see the first significant deployment of end-user assembled Web applications in 2008. Expect 2009 to be the year enterprise mashups begin hitting the tipping point of adoption.” I am a big fan of mashups and I see the capability being built into many tools by large, mid-size, and small vendors. He may be right but I think the vendors understand this barrier and it will be a major focus on their part, in terms of both ease of use features and marketing.

12. Enterprise 2.0 will become a standard feature in most organizations. Now here is a prediction that I like. So I will close on it and hope Dion is right.