Unlike just a few years ago, there are no shortage of Web 2.0 applications for the Enterprise. There are widget frameworks, platforms, realtime collaboration, blogging tools, social networks and more.

There is one major common denominator that I see between the current Enterprise 2.0 offerings, and that is the obsession with the desktop webbrowser as the major source of interaction with the application.

The truth is that the most successful Enterprise 2.0 applications will focus heavily on mobile and will take in to consideration the considerably different use cases related to how different functions use mobile devices.

The market for enterprise mobile applications is, depending on who you ask, somewhere in the range of $12bn per year. This would, by my finger-in-the-wind method of guessing, vastly eclipse the current size of the enterprise 2.0 market.

Enterprise 2.0 platforms and applications cannot be taken seriously until they offer industry leading mobile experiences. While one of the benefits often touted by Enterprise 2.0 vendors is a reduction in travel requirements, business travel remains at high levels, even during this economic downturn.

Vendors will need to consider the vastly different use-cases for the type of user that spends most of their day on a blackberry vs. the user who spends most of their time in front of a computer. Mobile Enterprise 2.0 applications cannot be simple mobile-ready versions of the existing application. Mobile applications should focus on messaging, triaging, delegation and other high-level information-based behaviors that augment the information and interactions taking place inside a proper Enterprise 2.0 application.

I believe that one of the obstacles to going mobile to date has been the Content Management focus of many Enterprise 2.0 platforms. Content Management companies and philosophies do not typically transfer well to mobile. This is particularly a problem for smaller vendors who seem largely confused by what a mobile business application really looks like, and how user behavior translates to mobile.

The first successful Enterprise 2.0 applications for mobile may come out of the CRM 2.0 or Business Intelligence disciplines, as they are significantly better prepared for creating relevant mobile apps within their current set of use cases.

Are you working on an Enterprise 2.0 mobile application? I want to hear about it. Get in touch ( jevon at firestoker dot com)