CIOs and IT directors are being overwhelmed by the choice of
products in thesocial software market, making it difficult for
organisations to decide what products to deploy.
Gartner has identified 36 companies selling social software to
enable organisations to develop internal and external online
communities. The majority of companies are niche players, with IBM
and Microsoft the only large players.
"More than half of companies providing social software have less
than 50 staff and revenues under $5m," said Gartner research
director Nikos Drakos.
He urged CIOs to be aware that the market for social software is
extremely diverse, with internal deployments very different from
external deployments. For instance, Facebook integration may be a
high priority on an external community site, but less important for
an internal community.
Gartner recommended CIOs negotiate social software contracts
carefully as they may find they are penalised for deployments that
are successful. For instance, companies can expect to pay licence
costs of over $1m a year on a site with an external community of
50,000 users, and up to $1m for 5,000 named users on an internal
community site.
