As Jerry Bowles predicted and I commented on (IBM and Microsoft), IBM announced a major social media move and Microsoft has also responded. As Business Week wrote, “With collaboration software called Lotus Connections, Big Blue competes with Microsoft as Web 2.0 expands into the business world.” They added, “with IBM’s announcement of a new product called Lotus Connections. It wraps five social networking technologies up into one integrated package—similar to what Microsoft’s Office does for traditional desktop productivity software such as Word and Excel.”

Here is also the NYT perspective, I.B.M. to Introduce Workers’ Networking Software, with the opening line, “And you thought social networking was all about text-messaging among bored teenagers.” This seems more behind the times than usual for the Times, as this was the type of comment made two years ago but most business people are, fortunately, way beyond it now.

The hype race is on, Franks Gens, senior vice-president for research at tech market research IDC added, “…And, if IBM handles this right, its package could rapidly spread the use of so-called Web 2.0 applications in the business world.”

The IBM move integrates five applications: “profiles, where employees post information about their expertise and interests; communities, which are formed and managed by people with common interests; activities, which are used to manage group projects; bookmarks, where people share documents and Web sites with others; and blogs, where people post ongoing commentaries.”

Sounds a little like the new Sharepoint. Some analysts, such as the Business Week people, say that the IBM package is a bit richer but the Microsoft version is integrated within an existing product, rather than offered as a new one. There has been an array of responses, Steve Borsch says that it “legitmizes the entire category.” Ross Dawson points out, “the reality is that IBM and Microsoft have been active in this space in various ways for some time. There are (also) a number of smaller companies providing social software for the enterprise.”

These moves are not unlike many other waves of new technology with the major and the more nimble minors playing their roles. I agree that there is a lot of market positioning on top of some new and old functionality and integration by the majors. But IBM has been experimenting with using Enterprise 2.0 with its own employees for some time and now they are taking some of these experiments to the market. The minors fall into two categories, those that aspire to be majors or at least remain independent, and those hoping the majors buy them. For many companies these days the new IPO is having Google, Yahoo, or Microsoft buy them. It will be interesting to see how all this plays out but it is certainly bringing Enterprise 2.0 more to center stage. At the same time, Enterprise 2.0 is much more than collaborative software so I hope this “much moré” does not get lost in the battle of the software giants. A similar unfortunate move occured with the content and document management vendors and KM. We do not want a repeat.