For CIO Professionals

REPORT: The Forrester Wave™: Collaboration Platforms, Q3 2009

Microsoft And IBM Lotus Lead; Novell Challenges

August 6, 2009Rob Koplowitz

In Forrester's 66-criteria evaluation of collaboration platform vendors, we found that Microsoft and IBM Lotus led the pack based on the breadth of functionality in their offerings. Novell edged into the Leaders' quadrant with its Teaming product. MindTouch, the only open source option in this Forrester Wave, landed as a Strong Performer. Open Text represented a strong option, particularly for current Open Text ECM Suite customers. Atlassian, Jive Software, Socialtext, and Traction Software all approach the market with strong social networking capabilities. New entrant Cisco WebEx debuted as a Contender and will look to disrupt the market landscape over time. Central Desktop is the only pure software-as-a-service (SaaS) offering with a focus on small and medium businesses, as well as enterprise departments.

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

REPORT: Topic Overview: Microsoft Office SharePoint Server 2007

April 24, 2008Kyle McNabb, Rob Koplowitz

Forrester's Microsoft Office SharePoint Server (MOSS) 2007 research helps information and knowledge management (I&KM) professionals get to grips with the sometimes viral adoption of Microsoft's collaboration, enterprise content management (ECM), search, portal, and business intelligence (BI) platform. MOSS's breadth forces many to ask: "Where do we start?" "Do we need the whole system?" and "How does it fit in our enterprise?" Our research helps answer these questions by providing strategic guidance, technical assessments, and planning best practices for MOSS in collaboration, ECM, and enterprise search initiatives. We also provide guidance on how to look at MOSS and Microsoft Office 2007 desktop applications for Information Workplace strategies.

For CIO Professionals

REPORT: Enterprise Social Networking 2010 Market Overview

April 22, 2010Rob Koplowitz

2010 will be a defining year for enterprise Web 2.0. With IBM Lotus and Microsoft attempting to extend dominant positions in collaboration and messaging to social software, a very broad and rich landscape of technology vendors will differentiate to stay relevant in this crowded market. With enterprise social technologies, buyers must now assess vendors pursuing three distinct strategies: commoditization, horizontal and vertical solutions, and integration with adjacent technologies. The trend will drive lower-cost options for many and higher-value purpose-fit options for those that require them.

For CIO Professionals

REPORT: The Forrester Wave™: Enterprise Social Platforms, Q3 2011

IBM, Jive, NewsGator, And Telligent Lead A Rapidly Maturing Field

August 24, 2011Rob Koplowitz

In Forrester's first ever, 62-criteria evaluation of enterprise social platform vendors, we found that IBM, Jive, NewsGator, and Telligent led the pack due to breadth and depth of functionality and long-range strategy. Microsoft has added substantial social functionality to its SharePoint platform. Atlassian launched forward, broadening its core wiki offering, while Socialtext executed on its pioneering vision around capabilities like microblogging. Giants Cisco and OpenText are looking to get in on the action by extending their enterprise footprints. Content and collaboration professionals should use this report and associated spreadsheet tool as a starting point for evaluating how these vendors' products fit with their particular requirements.

For Application Development & Delivery Professionals

REPORT: Now Is The Time To Determine SharePoint's Place In Your Application Development Strategy

SharePoint Use Is Exploding; How To Get The Most From Its Underlying Platform

July 16, 2008 John R. Rymer, Rob Koplowitz

As application development managers, you may see Microsoft SharePoint as a collaboration application. But as many shops are discovering, SharePoint is also a development platform that people both inside and outside of IT use to create intranets, outward-facing portals, electronic forms, workflows, and even dashboards. The promise of SharePoint: Your organization will be able to create and deploy collaboration applications faster and give businesspeople productive new tools. The pitfalls: SharePoint can add new unplanned demands as your teams fill the product's gaps in application life-cycle management and enterprise integration and as they create policies to prevent a new chaos of user-generated applications. Decide what role SharePoint will play in your application development strategy, and then put in place the resources and practices required to execute on that strategy.