Skip to main content

Enterprise Online Community Apps Demand

Consumer social networks are mainstream applications, so people are now demanding similar applications in the workplace that provide personalized online experiences for creating, publishing, locating, and sharing content internally and externally with colleagues, customers, and partners.

If these applications are not provided by an IT organization, IDC observes that employees are bringing them in through their own initiatives. This emerging business need has created a suddenly crowded market of online community software providers aiming to make the business world a more social place.

IDC forecasts that the U.S. online community software market will grow from $278.4 million in 2008 to $1.6 billion in 2013 at a CAGR of 41.8 percent. While the U.S. online community software market was not immune to the recession, dominant vendors in this space reported double-digit growth rates in 2008 and higher-than-expected growth in the first half of 2009.

Overall, the U.S. online community software market doubled in revenue from $135.3 million in 2007 to $278.4 million in 2008 based on the promise of online community software to help organizations deepen relationships with customers and innovate at much faster speeds.

The overall growth rate for U.S. online community software did not meet expectations for 2008 due to the tough economy and drastic cuts in marketing budgets. However, IDC expects a resurgence of growth in 2010 as the economy recovers, more traditional enterprise players enter this market, and methods for measuring return on investment become more standardized.

Still, gaps in adoption will remain based on the failure among some organizations to adjust to these more transparent ways of operating, and some community initiatives will fail due to the lack of understanding about the human capital investments required by the community management model.

"The lesson that technology is only as good as its user will be a hard lesson learned for many companies needing to focus more on community strategy and management than on the technology solution," says Caroline Dangson, IDC research analyst.

Online community software enables new ways of working that require a shift in mindset and culture. IDC finds that traditional corporate culture acts as a major barrier to adoption today, even more so than the economic downturn.

Popular posts from this blog

How WLAN Transforms Industrial Automation

The industrial sector is on the eve of a wireless transformation, driven by an urgent demand for greater network capacity, reliability, and deterministic performance. Historically, manufacturers and mission-critical operations have relied on wired networks — favoring their predictability — because spectrum congestion in legacy 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands limited confidence in wireless for operational technology (OT) environments. However, with the introduction and rapid adoption of the 6GHz spectrum, compounded by significant advances in Wi-Fi standards, industrial facilities are now poised to embrace wireless LANs as the backbone for automation and digital innovation. Industrial WLAN Market Development Recent research from ABI Research forecasts that over 70 percent of industrial-grade wireless LAN access points (WLAN APs) shipped in 2030 will support the 6GHz band. This is a leap from 2 percent in 2023, highlighting a rapid and profound technological shift. The market for ruggedized indust...