November 23rd, 2009

Fawning over Chatter and how SAP missed its chance

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 5:50 pm

Categories: Social computing, Social software

Tags: Salesforce.com Inc., SFdC, Sales Force Management, Sales, Dennis Howlett

Ever since Salesforce.com announced Chatter, there’s been a rising crescendo of what I can only describe as fawning and uncritical waffle. It’s worrying.

As I’ve said before, Chatter is ESME with a few bells and whistles. Yet here we have everyone from Scoble to Mike Krigsman praising this as though it represents the second coming of IT. First up Scoble:

First, lots of people, including most of the Enterprise Irregulars who usually do a bang-up seemed to have missed the real news that Marc Benioff, CEO of Salesforce, announced this week at the TechCrunch Real-Time Crunchup: that Salesforce is going after the whole company, not just the sales people.

Robert - puhlease. I resent that. That’s way too simplistic a view. I called Scoble up on a time limited voice connection from the UK using a new SIM card that sucked my $$ faster than a Las Vegas slot machine. We didn’t get to complete the call so what I say here is based only in part on that conversation. As I said to Scoble: ‘Of course we got it. A year or more ago. And demo’d it in front of around 8,000 developers around the world. It is called ESME and is available as an open source project. I know a lot about that project as I was chief ‘handwaver’ and advocate both inside and outside the SAP community. So let’s be clear - in concept - Chatter is NOT new.

Here’s what ESME offers that Chatter doesn’t:

• It’s open source. You can play with it, figure if it works for you or discard at zero cost.
• It was built with scalability in mind. It’s based on the Scala/Lift framework. That’s what was used to help Twitter solve its problems a year or so ago when the Fail Whale was a common occurrence. Salesforce.com knows that if demand takes off, it has to solve the scaling issue very quickly. It reckons this will be done within a year. I’m suggesting that if they took on board the tenets of how ESME was built, they could do that inside 3-4 months.
• ESME was built with business process in mind. It was built to demonstrate problem resolution inside day to day business processes. Chatter doesn’t address that directly but indirectly. In conversations I had with Salesforce.com execs, they see it as a way to get customers to spend more on SFA or field service/call center apps that Salesforce sells. That’s a narrow view and not aligned with the broader view pundits are ascribing to the service.

In comments to Scoble’s post, Mike Krigsman punts the hush, hush, wink, wink idea that Salesforce.com already knows this could go deep into the enterprise. At one level he is absolutely correct. Yet SFdC handles a sliver of enterprise process capability:

The significance of Chatter is validating social computing in the enterprise, which you addressed in the comment from Jive’s CEO. Those who think Chatter is a trivial Twitter clone are short-sighted in their view. Based on off-the-record discussion with senior execs in a position to know, I can assure you that what we see today in Chatter is merely the tip of the iceberg. Social computing now has the strategic backing from one of the enterprise software heavyweights. That’s significant. By the way, if anyone doubts Salesforce’s commitment to Chatter, look no further than the the fact it is a new “force” platform module. That’s their bedrock platform.

[My emphasis added.]

Mike - this was validated a year ago. Admittedly it was early but it absolutely was validated by SAP and its immediate supporters at very large enterprises. Mike sat in on the same meetings I videod with Salesforce.com co-founder Parker Harris and (not videod) conversation with Brett Queener. Where is that over arching vision which he claims? Instead and including discussions with Steve Fisher who has to make this stuff work, I didn’t hear any of that hyperbole. Instead, I saw a measured acceptance that Salesforce has much to do before it can aspire to the predictions being made.

Herein lies the danger. Salesforce.com may well have its hands on something of real value. The fact it is giving it away for existing users tells me it sees long term value in the embedding to the Force.com platform. But…it has to monetize along the way because in Benioff’s words - this the next SFdC billion dollar opportunity. How?

When you parse that thought stream against business process you then need to examine what SFdC owns. The platform + SFS + field service + call center. Good though that is, it is a fraction of what makes a business tick or that which delivers breakthrough value unless you believe that sales based functions are at the forefront of delivered business value. I question that at multiple levels. Here’s one to get you going: Sun owns Java. Money shot?

Couple that with the acknowledged fact SFdC is wrestling with managing and filtering the noise v value clutter in the real time stream (which ESME arguably solved early on albeit at a rudimentary but workable level) and you can see this represents a big set of technical problems. To its credit, Salesforce.com acknowledges those issues and knows it doesn’t have a good answer. Today. That I respect. What I don’t respect are pundits writing strategy for the company by proxy when they have little understanding of the technical impediments.

So - before all the handwavers go declaring victory think this: Salesforce.com is a credible and major SaaS vendor. It is NOT a credible enterprise process vendor. At least not yet and doesn’t have a declred roadmap to get there under its monetizable ownership. It doesn’t own all the process steps where something like Chatter will deliver value yet owns the platform that allows these services to emerge.

Back to SAP. It had the chance to take ESME and make its own almost from the get go. It was built with Netweaver integration in mind. It had/has the potential to reach millions of users - today. So here’s the real difference.

Salesforce.com is brilliant at timing and packaging. For all the dopey naming of Chatter, Salesforce.com has the immediate mindshare that SAP could have owned a year or more ago. Does SAP get a second shot? Of course because ESME could be embedded in a matter of weeks/months while Salesforce.com tries to figure how it scales. SAP has millions of captive users where Salesforce has a fraction and more importantly, has only a tiny part of the total process view.

In the meantime - I invite readers to watch the video I recorded of Enterprise Advocates colleague Ray Wang speaking to SAP users earlier today in the UK. It puts much of this into perspective. (see top of post.)

Finally - and to repeat - I didn’t get to finish the conversation with Scoble. I trust this post will help flesh out where I am coming from on this important discussion.

UPDATE: Scoble was kind enough to respond in comments, concentrating on the pricing issue. That’s OK but doesn’t address what enterprise will do - free or not. That’s why process in this discussion is so important. It’s way beyond what he calls ‘features.’

November 9th, 2009

Enterprise 2.0: now we're talking

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 6:38 am

Categories: ERP, Social computing, Social software

Tags: Industry, Social Computing, Enterprise 2.0, E2.0, Alex Williams, Susan Scrupski, Social Networking, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion

[Warning: extra long post]

It’s always a joy when a post provokes a stack of other posts that add value to the discussion. My curmudgeonly rant about the ‘what a crock’ non-debate did the trick. I would have been deeply disappointed if it hadn’t provoked a response. Before responding to the various arguments it’s worth contextualizing where I’m coming from:

The software industry is littered with the bodies of failure. Those same failures have cost business billions of dollars. It provides the backdrop against which my colleague Mike Krigsman writes story after story how tech fails its intended buyers. There is no reason to believe that Enterprise 2.0 is any different. Check the video on my personal weblog: How communities can fail.

The expression ‘Enterprise 2.0′ is riddled with difficulty not least because it pre-supposes a technology solution to what in my view is an ill-defined or at times non-existent problem. That is compounded by the fact E2.0 was defined by an academic. Few people in the business world are prepared to take on academia. It’s a dangerous game to play, especially when that game seems to fit so neatly around an attractive play.

I don’t need to recrunch the ’social’ thing but it is an important factor that in my mind amply illustrates the lack of intellectual rigor around solution creation. It is good to see that in the discourse even my sharpest critics have acknowledged the emphasis and use of ’social’ as a dreadful mistake. That admission alone should provide topic thinkers with an escape hatch through which they can reframe this topic.

I wasn’t there is person but take Timo Elliott’s account as an accurate reflection of events. The problem is that while billed as a debate, there wasn’t one. How could there be when only one side of the argument was represented? It should therefore be no surprise when critics such as I get up on hind legs and bellow at the crowd, often in unflattering terms.

So to the specifics.

Read the rest of this entry »

October 30th, 2009

SOMESSO: social computing meets financial services

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 5:16 am

Categories: Social computing, Social software

Tags: Financial Service, Social Computing, Fidor, Social Networking, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion, Dennis Howlett

Next Monday and Tuesday I will be attending SOMESSO in Zurich. This is an event that covers the intersection between the financial services industry and social computing. According to the blurbs:

Day 1 is reserved for corporate workshops for Finance and Banking professionals (Finance Masterclass) on the topic Web 2.0 and its application to business collaboration

On Day 2 you will hear top notch keynotes and presentations from today’s leading experts at the conference.

Financial services is where I started my career and a business sector in which I have a long term interest. If financial services can find good ways to leverage social computing then that will indicate social computing in general has moved a very long way down the track towards mainstream acceptance.

It’s not unusual to see financial services organizations as early technology adopters. However, social computing carries many potential risks and can be impacted by regulatory concerns. Compound that with the mess that banking and insurance has been in the last few years and it is hardly a surprise that this area of computing has been largely ignored.

It will be interesting to hear the discussions around what can and cannot be achieved in areas like collaboration and community. The Google Wave and Gravity demo I videoed at SAP TechEd provides one example of where this ’stuff’ can go. What might social computing bring to the analysis of risk? How might collaboration close the gap and solve the problems that exist between front and back office trading operations? Is there a place for new kinds of community based banking? Fidor thinks so. How is social computing changing access to funds in parts of the world that would traditionally found it difficult to raise money? On this last point, I am looking forward to hearing more about the Kiva story. I’m expecting a fascinating learning day.

There’s still time to book for those interested in this topic.

Disclosure: I’m driving the online presence and SOMESSO is covering my travel.

September 29th, 2009

The burnout risks for E2.0 community managers

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 6:00 am

Categories: Social computing

Tags: Community, Organization, Community Manager, Dion Hinchcliffe, Community Management, Real Estate, Blogging, Productivity, Wiki, Business Operations

Dion Hinchcliffe’s piece on community management surprised me. There is a sense that Dion is trying to lay down some ground rules in an area that is too new for anyone to draw anything other than tentative and early stage conclusions. That’s not to say that conclusions are incorrect. There is plenty with which to agree but it is not enough. There is a gaping hole down which many otherwise well intended projects will fall.

Culture is sometimes a bone of contention in community building and maintenance discussions but history and experience tell us that many large organizations develop cultures either accidentally or by design. There is an excellent article from M Jason Martin, the University of Florida from 2006 where he says:

Culture permeates all aspects of any society. It acts as the basic fabric that binds people together. Culture dictates tastes in music, clothes, and even the political and philosophical views of a group of people. Culture is not only shared, but it is deep and stable.^[1] However, culture does not exist simply as a societal phenomenon. Organizations, both large and small, adhere to a culture. Organizational culture determines how an organization operates and how its members frame events both inside and outside the organization.

Culture has to be accommodated in community management. It isn’t easy and as Dion implies, the role is often poorly resourced, adding to the difficulties faced.

As someone who has been closely involved in helping a large organization figure out a collaboration strategy, execute against it with social tools, hit a whole bunch of potholes and have as yet to fully emerge out the other side after two years, I’m reasonably familiar with the issues he raises and then some.

It should be no surprise that the baseline issue: should these kinds of endeavor have community management? produced a 95% positive response rate.

The vast majority of the respondents, 95% of them, rated community management as “essential” to their Enterprise 2.0 effort. The remainder listed it as “important”. None of them reported it as “Not that important”. While there is always the possibility of groupthink in results like this, it’s fascinating that community management, while still barely rating a few lines of description in pro-Web 2.0 sources such as Wikipedia, has become such an important aspect of online communities.

Regardless of whether a project is IT related or not, why would you not want people in leadership roles? This was something Booz Allen alluded to in Dion’s quoted text yet I disagree with Dion’s assertion that community managers need to be ‘jacks of all trades’:

Part of the need for this wide skill set seems to be that since community management as a practice is still largely understood poorly (and consequently the need for it can be hard to understand) it is thus often poorly resourced. The tasks of community management then often devolve onto the shoulders of those trying to realize their Enterprise 2.0 effort, but without the skills or time to do it. This does mean that an Enterprise 2.0 can end up being more work than originally planned over the long haul than it appears to be to outsiders or first-timers. Either that or the community doesn’t get the support it needs day-in and day-out to thrive and ultimately languishes.

It must be patently obvious that no one person can hope to carry all roles, especially as it relates to a large organization. So while the ‘need’ may be a matter of practical reality for some organizations, it is a falsehood for companies to assume that should be the norm. Having said that, it is an easy mistake to make and one where I have seen community managers driven out of organizations simply because they couldn’t keep 10 balls in the air. Organizations massively under-estimate the need for people skills as integral to community projects and that success will be a lot harder to achieve than they imagine.

I lay the responsibility for this kind of failure at the door of those who have made community sound much easier than is the reality. It leads to the folly of believing that because E2.0 tools are relatively inexpensive, the implementation and management costs should be equally trivial. I’d say that usability issues aside, there is no correlation between tools cost and people requirements in either E2.0 management or operational roles. Especially in the crucial early stages. There is a gulf between running an individual blog, collective blog or forum (as examples) where there are naturally occurring common interests and the strictures under which those carrying out these types of project in a large enterprise labor.

Read the rest of this entry »

September 8th, 2009

HiveLive: the beginning of community app consolidation?

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 5:40 pm

Categories: CRM, Social computing

Tags: Consolidation, RightNow Technologies, HiveLive, HiveLive Platform, Mergers & Acquisitions, Corporate Law, Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Advertising & Promotion, Enterprise Software, Investment

Larry Dignan has the details of RightNow’s acquisition of HiveLive. I was struck by two things. First up Barron’s notes that HiveLive had raised $7.8 million so a sale at $6 million sounds like a distressed deal. Second, RightNow is talking very clearly about integration:

RightNow believes that by adding the HiveLive platform, RightNow will deliver the broadest social CRM solution in the marketplace. The HiveLive platform is available immediately following the acquisition and will be tightly integrated into RightNow November ’09

This is something I’ve been waiting to hear about from any community style app vendor for some time. It has been one of my sticking points when discussing so-called Enterprise 2.0 style applications or services. While E2.0 apps may deliver value in their own right, it is hard to see how that translates into the big money wins based on my belief that “content without context IN process is meaningless.” That’s a pretty harsh statement but one that is meant to convey the problem of social software as yet another siloed app category that could deliver much higher value if integrated within business processes.

Hearing that RightNow is grasping that particular nettle represents a big step in making that statement redundant. By pulling HiveLive into the CRM process, RightNow is giving real meaning and promising two way value to the notion of socializing CRM. If they execute well then this will represent a big step forward.

The burning question is whether this signals the start of consolidation in the community segment. In talking to Sameer Patel on the Twitter back channel, the question arose as to which set of dominoes may fall next. In our musings the names Helpstream and Lithium came up. According to Sameer who is much closer to these things, Helpstream gets a measure of sales via Oracle while Lithium has a lot of crossover with Salesforce.com.

Given Oracle’s acquisitive nature it wouldn’t be surprising to hear they take a tilt at the market. There are plenty of potential candidates out there. Much will depend on the attitude of VC’s who are invested in this market, especially given what we’ve seen happen to HiveLive.

Whatever happens, it’s a great buy for RightNow. I just hope they find a way of dropping the ’socialCRM’ moniker. It doesn’t feel particularly comfortable. Never has.

September 2nd, 2009

Enterprise 2.0: answering some of the tough questions

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 12:29 pm

Categories: Social computing, Social software

Tags: Social Computing, Enterprise 2.0, Social Networking, Online Communications, Marketing, Advertising & Promotion, Dennis Howlett

Euan Semple on the New Web from Dennis Howlett on Vimeo.

Following on from my Enterprise 2.0: what a crock post, I thought it might be useful to show Euan Semple’s perspective on what this ’stuff’ is all about.

Euan and I met earlier in the year and I wanted to explore some of the themes underpinning much of what we see surrounding the E2.0 meme. Key take aways from this 13 minute discussion:

• Enterprise 2.0 has served to describe some of the tools but is not always a helpful notion
• Community is not necessarily a good way to describe what is going on
• Acknowledging that management is not necessarily equipped to understand the shifts that are being exposed through the use of social computing technology does not necessarily imply business change management projects
• Understanding that the technology is an enabler for exposing the value which can emerge from broader cultural shifts should help business better grasp the values which can be unlocked
• Assisting companies in coming to terms with change is hard work - arguably harder than earlier forms of process change
• Broad adoption may easily take 50 years or two generations. This needs to be seen from the perspective of the web being only some 30 years old
• One of the biggest risks to seeing these changes through is a lack of patience

I don’t necessarily agree with everything that Euan says but I respect his experience and practical approach to the E2.0 issues. It contrasts markedly with much of the hand waving I see elsewhere and which does not jibe with my own experience in this arena. I am with Euan that some enthusiasts massively under estimate the effort needed to help organizations make discernible steps on the road to business transformation.

I will return separately to the many helpful blog posts that emerged from my earlier crack at this topc. They make excellent points but as always leave nagging questions.

August 20th, 2009

Jeremiah Owyang quits Forrester

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 9:06 am

Categories: Social computing, Social software

Tags: Analyst, Blog, Forrester Research Inc., Jeremiah Owyang, Ray Wang, Blogging, Benefits, Internet, Human Resources, Dennis Howlett

Some will parse this as an exodus but following on from Ray Wang’s departure from Forrester, we now learn Jeremiah Owyang is on his way to pastures new. From the Interactive Marketing Professionals Forrester blog:

Nearly two years ago, I heard that an influential blogger was interested in an analyst job at Forrester. I had just taken over management of our interactive marketing team and to my complete pleasure was able to hire that blogger — Jeremiah Owyang.

And so it’s on a bittersweet note that I share that Jeremiah has decided to leave Forrester at the end of this month. All of you who connect with Jeremiah through his reports, blog posts, and tweets know that he is an enthusiastic teacher, a client advocate, and a creative force. We will miss his exuberance and his contribution to the Forrester “Idea Factory”. We will miss him. What’s next for Jeremiah? He’s going back into the field to apply the trends. I expect that he’ll still sleep in shifts so that he can stay connected. :-)

It’s obviously a shock to Forrester, coming so soon after Ray Wang’s departure.

I’ve known Jeremiah a couple of years and while we’ve had our share of tetchy ‘moments’ (I am not a fan of the incessant consumer facing social media hand waving) his enormous stature as a consumer facing social computing analyst cannot be denied. I had a sneaking feeling something was afoot when he reached out to me a couple of weeks back - we’d not spoken in ages. I hasten to say that nothing was revealed at that time.  I also have a feeling he’ll be learning about enterprisey stuff in early course. But we’ll see.

So what’s going on in the analyst community? When Ray departed, Vinnie Mirchandani provided a solid insight:

Analyst firms like Gartner and Forrester, unlike investment banks, do not really encourage “superstars”. Ray’s compensation was likely less than 10% of revenues he was  directly or indirectly bringing to Forrester. It’s funny because I had the same realization precisely a decade ago about how under-compensated I was.

It isn’t just about compensation and despite what Vinnie says, I remember the days when getting a press call with a top flight Gartner analyst was like pulling hens teeth. At conferences, you’d literally have to mug them to get an interview. Folk like Jeremiah and Ray have gone out of their way to make themselves available - even to curmudgeonly old fools like me. Why would they do that?

I sense there are several things at play. The analysts firms are starting to realize that clipping the wings of their brightest and best just ain’t going to work. Blogs are too easy to set up and use, they provide a great channel for their thinking and a solid way of gleaning feedback in real-time. That’s enormously valuable to the firm and unquestionably drives business.

We’re also seeing the emergence of the personal brand - Ray and Jeremiah have that in spades. It’s something they work ridiculously long hours at, taking huge risks along the way. Why would they give all of that up to the larger firm when there is so much more they could do in the wider world? It’s a non sequitor.

Changes in the compensation model may help retain the next rock star analyst but somehow I doubt it. The analyst firms are going to have to get used to their brightest and best viewing the analyst bench as but a stepping stone for greater things. That has to impact the business model and quite how the firms respond remains to be seen.

In the meantime - congratulations to Jeremiah. Job done.

Jeremiah’s own announcement

August 7th, 2009

Oi! Are we invisible or something?

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 6:47 am

Categories: Social computing

Tags: Women, Social Media, Case Study, Gender And Diversity, Human Resources, Dennis Howlett

This starts as a guest post from fellow Irregular Maggie Fox. She’s one of the pioneers over at Technically Women and this is a re-run of what she says. My comments follow:

What Does it Take to be a “Top 10″ Social Media Speaker?

I’m not going to hash and rehash the controversy around the TSG all-male list of speakers on social media, or the O’Reilly Web 2.0 Summit conflagration about the same issue not long before that, or… well, you get the picture. The absence of women on podiums in proportionate numbers has been an issue for quite some time. [Click on that last link. Srsly.]

What I want to know is – what does it take to get on these lists, and what can we, as women in tech, do differently to get there? Clearly there’s something going on.

I think part of the problem is many of us suck at two things: valuing our skills and engaging in healthy self-promotion. There may be a good reason for the latter, which is what I want to focus on: when it comes to social media in particular, self-promotion so frequently trumps actual accomplishments that we have a saucy little word for it – douchebaggery. No one wants to be seen as a douchebag (except for the douchebags, and that’s because they don’t know any better).

So, let’s say you want to be on The List. What does it take to be a Top 10 Social Media Speaker? In my humble opinion, the following are tablestakes:

1. Demonstrated thought leadership. You write original stuff that other people link to, quote and share. You’re so far ahead of the game, you’re defining the space.

2. Blue-chip client list. Who are your clients? What did you do for them? For how long? Who else are your clients? (i.e. one big client does not a real business make).

3. Results. Third-party, independently validated reports that demonstrate the value and impact of the work you have conducted. Prove that you moved the needle for a client. Having awesome testimonials is also great.

4. Speaking experience. I’d like to see that you’ve spoken to business groups and your peers about social media, at national conferences that are highly respected. Case studies are A++.

5. Press. If you’re the real deal, you should have attracted lots of press attention by now.

Are we in agreement that this is a fairly comprehensive itemization of the basic things that need to be in place for one to be considered for such a list? That a person demonstrating all of the above should definitely be recognized as a leader in their space, and included on such or similar lists?

Good. I thought so.

So here’s the punchline: I meet all of those criteria. (Check out the links for yourself).

How is it that lists are produced, identifying top social media speakers and… I’m not on them? Clearly, I need to get better at healthy self-promotion, because I refuse to believe anyone would be so stupid as to not consider me because I’m a girl.

Read the rest of this entry »

July 14th, 2009

Sex, geeks and Blackbox Republic

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 11:52 pm

Categories: Enterprise applications, Social computing

Tags: Community, Oliver, Collaboration, Groupware, Investment, Enterprise Software, Software, Finance, Dennis Howlett

The first time you meet Sam Lawrence, ex-CMO of Jive Software you just know he’s a specially talented marketing person. He’s a creative which for geeks should be an immediate affinity thing. Today, he, along with co-founder April Donato came out of stealth mode with Blackbox Republic, what he believes is the next iteration of social networking.

The first offering focuses on the sex positive community, something with which I was not familiar and which at first had me thinking that Sam had joined the Crazy Deranged Fools out in West Texas headed by cartoonist extraordinaire Hugh MacLeod. But no. Far from it.

Earlier in the week, Sam and April briefed me and I was aware that Oliver Marks had also been briefed. We compared notes. We both agree that despite its in your face attention grabbing first community, Blackbox Republic is onto something. Oliver’s take is particularly inspiring because he correctly argues that:

Any form of collaboration is intensely personal  - it means letting go and trusting that the information you share, and by definition the power you have, will ultimately return value to you.

This is as true socially in your personal life as it is in a work situation. We’ve all been there - the noisy bar full  of obnoxious people and the sinking feeling of wasting a night out, the participation in an online work space dominated by snarky colleagues destroying any sense of cameraderie or creativity.  This typically results in the bar being ‘last months hip place’ and empty collaboration spaces online.

How often do you here that in a community building sales pitch?

So-called enterprise and community pundits have been trying to crack the community building code for what seems like years but when you stand back for a moment, what have they really been trying to do: get each of us to transact something as the price of our entrance into this brave new collaborative world. It should be no wonder that many of these efforts fail. I sense that with Blackbox Republic, a number of those same pundits are going to be eating large gobs of humble pie. Why? As I said elsewhere:

…anyone can join provided they’re willing to pay the $25 a month (I like that he has a pay model from the get go. That sorts out the weridos and hangers on from day one) but you can’t really connect with anyone unless they want to connect with you. That means you HAVE to add value and be seen as someone who gives so that you can get attention. That should create the kind of dynamic that breaks Nielsen’s 90-9-1 law of participation inequality. If it achieves that then Blackbox Republic has done something with which many of us in community building land have struggled.

Or as Oliver implies, Blackbox Republic starts by putting the trust issue right up front and making THAT the admission price for acceptance. Why should this have enterprise implications beyond those that Oliver discusses?

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June 23rd, 2009

SocialText goes free for up to 50 users

Posted by Dennis Howlett @ 6:39 am

Categories: Social computing

Tags: Socialtext, SocialText Free50, Wiki, Productivity, Strategy, Online Communications, Management, Dennis Howlett

Last weekend Ross Mayfield, president of SocialText called up to discuss the release of SocialText Free50, an offering which allows up to 50 users free access to many of SocialText’s functions. Included in the offer:

• SocialSignals - SocialText’s spin on microblogging
• SocialText Desktop - an Adobe based application
• SocialText People - social newtworking
• Dashboard - customer homepage
• One Workspace - wiki area

SocialCalc, which is now in open beta is not included, neither is support other than the basic online knowledge base.

Once the user count exceeds 50 people then it triggers a cost of $6 per user month for all users. In other words if you have 51 users then it weighs in at $306 per month. Appliance users pay the same amount plus $1,000 per month. The full pricing schedule can be found here.

Free50 allows IT to ‘claim’ control of the system: “We wanted to give IT the option of pro-actively managing SocialText environments - we think that will help get over some of the IT adoption problems that social software can experience,” said Mayfield.

On the call I expressed surprise that SocialText was giving away so many seats. While ‘free’ is always welcome, SocialText will not be able to monetize many SMBs, especially in Europe where there are millions of companies below the 50 person threshold. However, Mayfield countered that: “We’ve wanted to do this for a while - we’re trying to drive down our marketing costs and hoping the offering will go viral.”

SocialCalc has also been improved (see image) with a simpler history and the ability to share data across multiple worksheets. “This will put an end to massive spreasdsheets being emailed around the enterprise,” said Mayfield. However, I believe that in its current iteration, SocialCalc will not see full deployment but may be reserved for simple activities like feature list spreadsheets. As I pointed out on the call, finance people won’t touch an alternative to Excel unless pivot tables are included. That’s the number one feature for these people who also control which spreadsheet gets used.