Analysts: Enterprise 2.0 to Get Even More Affordable
by Joe McKendrick
One of the advantages Enterprise 2.0 approaches offer in many situations is the relatively low or incremental prices at which technology is made available to organizations. It looks like things will even get more affordable.
A recent report from Forrester Research predicts the Enterprise 2.0 market is about to see impending “price drops” on tools ranging from blogs to wikis to social networks. Forrester analysts cite three specific reasons for the price drops:
“Commoditization, bundling, and subsumption. Increased competition and slowing innovation means that there is less differentiation between blogging solutions. Further, many vendors, from Microsoft to Six Apart, now offer a complete, enterprise-oriented suites that bundle a mature set of essential tools, which drives down prices for individual tools and specialized solutions.”
The increasing ubiquity of SharePoint — which supports many Enterprise 2.0 features — also may help to drive down prices from many other vendors, Forrester predicts.
The only area that may see price increases is software for handling mashups, Forrester predicts. “IT departments will prioritize mashup technology as part of portal, business intelligence, and business process management software investments as well as a major component of SOA implementations.”
