Nice Comparison of Enterprise 2.0 and Web 2.0
by Bill Ives
I searched enterprise 2.0 on Twitter and found that Jeremy Chone posted on Enterprise Web vs Consumer Web [2.0]: Top Six Differences. I think the post offers an interesting starting point on the topic. His six are listed below with some comments added. You can find more useful detail in the original post.
1) Scale (Users vs Applications) most web apps strive for rapid growth and need to handle this scale. While enterprise apps have a different objective, supporting a relatively fixed number of users with growing needs.
2) Experience (Simplicity vs Functionality) Successful web apps are often very simple (e.g. twitter, del.icio.us). Enterprise apps usually require more functionality as suggested above. However, enterprise apps could learn from the web here. I have seen many enterprise apps start with simplicity and gain popularity because of this ease of use. Then they bow to demands for increased functionality and become too complex to use and lose out.
3) Security (One for One vs One to Many) Both need security but the enterprise requirements are more complex.
4) Transaction (Decoupled vs Complete) This one gets more technical. Many web apps allow for some stale data to survive to reduce overall costs while enterprise apps cannot tolerate this and go for greater data integrity at a higher cost.
5) Integration (Loose vs Strict) The web2.0 is in part define by open APIs and successful apps have allowed this. As Jeremey writes, “in consumer application integration is about breadth rather than depth. In the enterprise space, on the other hand, application integration has to be thoughtfully designed and managed and often has an impact in all layers of the application.” Testing, among other things and gets more complex.
6) Search (Page vs Data) Google looks for web pages. This is its power on the web and its weakness in the enterprise. As Jeremey writes, “in the enterprise Web, search is record-centric, and users do not search pages but records with all their associated attributes.” There are now enterprise apps that integrate both search needs.
The only issue that I have is with the last point "…6) Search (Page vs Data) Google looks for web pages".
