Enterprise 2.0

eWeek carried an interesting article this about how Web 2.0 will make its way into business. I'm sure the report supported by the likes of Gartner analysts will spur new investments into all forms of blogs, wikis and social-networking media. However it is unlikely that this is a trend that will be entrenched in the short term i.e. 1-2 years. Rather I see it as a long-term inevitability. While many tech savvy folks of all ages are in tune with blogs, wikis and have profiles on Facebook etc., it is hardly pervasive (although it seems so if you're in the middle of it).

The generation who will adopt these new collaboration and interaction paradigms without even thinking are really the teenagers of today or the workforce generation of tomorrow. My kids hardly use email anymore, giving way to Facebook messaging and instant messaging as the de facto way to communicate.

For software enterprise incumbents like Microsoft, the challenge is to evolve their enterprise software solutions to suit the modes of collaboration that are flexible and informal. For companies like Google their 'everything-on-the-net' culture probably makes them the best candidate for being Microsoft's successor. As they say, the imminent death of Microsoft is grossly exaggerated however, if slow painful demise is not out of the question. The problem isn't about resources and money. It is about culture, who has the right mix that is sympathetic to the future generation as opposed to protecting the interests of their current customers.