What does web 2.0 mean to enterprise?
June 8, 2006 – 3:28 am by coachwei | Category web 2.0 |Tim Oreilly wrote one of the first articles trying to define “web 2.0″ (http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/oreilly/tim/news/2005/09/30/what-is-web-20.html). This article is influential in helping establishing the concept of web 2.0, but it is very consumer focused and does not get into what web 2.0 is for business.
Dion Hinchcliffe maintains a fairly good blog about web 2.0 at ZDnet. I have been enjoying reading it(http://blogs.zdnet.com/Hinchcliffe/). Dion talked more on what web 2.0 means for the enterprise, such as Saas, running web 2.0 software, BPM, REST vs SOAP, etc.
In my view, first, we should put the “new media”, “social networking” aspects aside in order to properly look at enterprise web 2.0. “New media”, “social networking” and sites like flickr do not resonate with enterprise well. On the contrary, they confuse the thinking for enterprise folks. -Ask your average enterprise managers what flickr means to his/her buisiness, you will probably get a blank stare.
Fundamentally, enterprise web 2.0 is really about the feasibility of leveraging the web infrastructure to a new level. Enterprises can now reach a new level of efficiency and cost reduction via web 2.0 - a lot of which were not possible in web 1.0.
Remebmer 5-10 years ago, the top priority for every CIO is about how to leverage the web for his/her buisness. Starting with putting up a corporate website, then doing some e-commerce over the web, using the web to catpure leads, then using the web to communicate with customers and partners (remember the word extranet?), then building “intranet” for internal communications, and then building “portals”…With every step, efficiency is increased and operational cost is reduced.
What can web 2.0 do for CIOs? Why can not CIOs do these before? What does web 2.0 mean to CIOs from cost and efficiency perspectives?
CIOs: What is your web 2.0 strategy and plan? Are you doing to be missed out in web 2.0?
One Response to “What does web 2.0 mean to enterprise?”
One area where consumer and business applications overwlap is real-time collaboration. But it is quite right that a business collaboration is quite different from social networking. Couple of areas WEB 2.0 might address over period:
1. Relatime collaboration (update/ review documents together, track changes & comments as threads, threaded discussions from anywhere).
2. Compilation of information in an efficient and user friendly way.
3. Conversion of data and services enabled by SOA to meaningful information. (People will be able to do it division level without having to have knowledge of enterprise application development)
My 0.2 cents.
Anil Sharma
By <a href="http://www.vertexlogic.com"> Anil Sharma </a> on Jun 8, 2006