Enterprise 1.0 – 2.0 Gap

Ross Mayfield — Tue, 07 Nov 2006 14:19:16 +0000

Mark Masterson highlights the need for Enterprise 2.0 to work with Enterprise 1.0:

…This is interesting, and it addresses real concerns — in a brief conversation recently triggered by my post, a CSC CTO said to me that one of his biggest concerns is the potential for silos of information that are (but shouldn’t be) isolated from one another. In other words, he’s just as concerned about there being useful information in some blog or wiki, that some Enterprise 1.0 user needs but can’t get access to, as the other way around. The BEA software looks to be aimed at solving the Enterprise 1.0 –>> Enterprise 2.0 gap, and not the other way around. Nevertheless, it is interesting to see that people are thinking about this.

Fear not, Mark. We’re trying to get it right this time.

No Enterprise 2.0 company in their right mind would want to be an island, no matter the paradise. Most of us began working on interop even when our own apps were half-baked. RSS, Atom and other ad hoc standards proliferated.

But while we make an effort to work with existing enterprise architecture (e.g. Socialpoint), we’ll stay on the side of the web. Because the web as a platform compounds innovation that eventually makes itself into legacy architecture. Just look at the amount of enterprise applications leveraging RSS and Ajax. This morning I came across a funny way to describe this, in an intro to a new book about REST:

These un-weblike systems were able to take the name “Web Services” away from the competition because the competition is… the web. Just writing programs that interact with the web. Sounds pretty sketchy! The web may be all right as a platform for serving movies, or selling books, or trading stocks, or democratizing publishing, or coordinating huge volunteer projects, or searching much of the information currently in existence, but there’s no way it’s up to the task of managing Accounts Payable! For that you need… Web Services!

As Big Web Services gathered steam, the pro-web forces rallied behind the banner of REST: a name for the design philosophy that made the human-visible web so successful. They preached simplicity, addressability, statelessness and the uniform interface of HTTP. They also got into lots of heated arguments about what REST really meant.

Some organizations created services that claimed to be RESTful, and others critiqued those services and said they weren’t RESTful really, and is “RESTful” even a word? Meanwhile the world’s programmers started finding options in their IDEs that generated code for Big Web Service clients and servers, so they wouldn’t have to do so much programming.

…”Speaking of Ajax, did you know that an Ajax application is basically a REST web service client that runs in your web browser?”

It should be noted we are also plugging the gaps that Enterprise 1.0 missed. As an aside in the Shameless Plug department, Socialtext 2.0 was released as Open Source on Sourceforge this weekend, and as you tinker, here is the REST documentation.

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Ross Mayfield is CEO and co-founder of Socialtext, an emerging provider of Enterprise Social Software that dramatically increases group productivity and develops a group memory.

He also writes Ross Mayfield’s Weblog which focuses on markets, technology and musings.

SocialPoint on Sharepoint

Ross Mayfield — Tue, 31 Oct 2006 15:05:42 +0000

This morning we released SocialPoint, or Socialtext running on SharePoint. At first, this may seem counter-intuitive for a company like Socialtext. SharePoint is coming out with wikis and blogs in their 2007 version, why embrace and extend? Let me give you my personal reasons.

First of all, the humanizing of Microsoft has changed my attitude about the convicted monopolist. I believe that great people can work to change organizations, not just from Ray Ozzie on down. I’d rather be part of communities of change. I’ll still be a stalwart critic of the organization, but know I will have constructive conversations as a result.

Second, I believe that our Open Source solutions cooperating with Microsoft may grow the Open Source community as a whole. Most people won’t see this in Microsoft’s best interest. I do. Some people won’t see this in Open Source’s best interest. I do.

Third, SharePoint 2007 is an incumbent entry into the market that validates and grows the category. There is an increasing role for the best-of-breed wiki in the long term. Markets reward choice.

Fourth, the short-term role for a best-of-breed wiki the works with Sharepoint is immediately apparent. Here’s what Larry Cannell, who runs collaboration at Ford Motor Company, had to say about the next version of SharePoint:

These nagging questions, along with the broadly assumed definition of “enterprise” to mean an intranet running all Microsoft products, left me unsure whether Microsoft will become an enterprise Web 2.0 company any time soon. While I believe a platform like SharePoint 2007 could easily position Microsoft to deliver enterprise-grade Web 2.0 services, I think this may be difficult for them as long as the Office and SharePoint teams appear to be so inwardly focused.

Fifth, there is the profit motive, balanced by freedom. This will sell more seats of both Socialtext and SharePoint. More users and users as developers can choose, even in an IT environment.

This wasn’t the easiest decision, but whenever faced with a difficult one, just listen to your customers. Here’s what the first SocialPoint customer had to say:

“We are also very excited about the possibility of integrating Socialtext with our growing Microsoft SharePoint installation. Combining the structure of SharePoint with the open, flexible features of Socialtext’s wiki is a great solution for supporting teamwork.”

Right now, I’m intently listening to our community. The decision is if we should undertake another first with uncertain benefits, if we should release the first SharePoint Web Parts under an Open Source License.