Briefings (part 2): Some Honorable Mentions.

In part 1, I described the analyst briefing. Now I want mention a few companies that deserve some blog-love. I am pained knowing that I’m unable to mention everyone. But I do want to call out some as a thank-you gesture. Many companies continued to reach out to me even after I was no longer a Forrester employee. That meant that they were interested in me, not the fancy title on my business card. Their continued relationship with me enabled me to stay relevant in the E2.0 space, to consult with clients, publish reports, and participate as a thought-contributor in this space. I appreciate this.

One company I kept on meaning to blog about but never did was eTouch – the makers of the SamePage wiki. SamePage is an E2.0 platform (centered on a wiki platform, but then grew to include much more). For some reason it’s not usually found on the short-list of many E2.0 vendor lists – they don’t make a lot of noise – but they have goods. Their client-base seems to be those very big but shy companies who require top-notch security features (SamePage provides it), but refuse to allow their vendors from sharing their name on a client list. When I blog about a product I usually like to speak to a user of the product and ensure that the marketing message is consistent with the client experience. I was unable to speak to any eTouch client, which is why they never got a good mention on my blog – but let me repair this omission now.

InMagic is another E2.0 company I’m enthusiastic about. They provided me with lots of information for a report, but the never got blogged here. InMagic’s Presto product is different from the other E2.0 platforms. It is more of a KM tool with social-features. Think of it as a great way to enable corporate research. Their clients use Presto to bridge enterprise search, content management, and “social”. What makes Presto so interesting is that it is designed to leverage your existing stores of information – including syndicated content that you subscribe to. It’s really worth looking at.

I never blogged about NewsGator’s Social Sites product – but they are definitely an important E2.0 player – especially with their partnership with Microsoft and their recent purchase of Tomoye. I have very positive feelings about their approach. SharePoint 2010 is around the corner, and if you are a SharePoint-based company and you need real E2.0 capabilities, you have to look at what Newsgator provides.

I was also briefed by many companies who are not exactly in the E2.0 space, but in an adjacent market. In particular, some of the Social CRM vendors. I think I was most impressed with the coherence of Lithium’s message in this space. Others, such as Helpstream, have a really solid vision of SCRM too. Their briefings helped me understand where E2.0 vendors might be missing out on developing stronger business cases and more relevant approaches.

Speaking of the impact of SCRM to E2.0: Some E2.0 vendors totally get it. For example: Jive. I have blogged about Jive in the past so I was not going to mention them in this post. But they deserve it. Let me go a bit further than my usually balanced analyst voice – I think Jive rocks. I’m really impressed with their product and the support they provided me with one of my client engagements. Many E2.0 practitioners I met and interviewed spoke very highly of them too. I was paying close attention to Jive even before my Forrester days. Sometimes I had some concerns with the direction they were taking – but my concerns were disproven each time. They really rock. Their product and company continue to impress me.

I don’t mean this to exclude other E2.0 companies who “rock” also. I’m impressed with Lotus Connections – I think that IBM has a great vision and a product that makes a lot of sense (even if you are not an “IBM-shop”, but especially if you are). And I deeply honor SocialText who blazed the trail for the E2.0 space and continues to inspire it with their thought-leadership and product-leadership. But now I’m going to paint myself into a corner – since the really fine people at other companies are going to ask why I didn’t mention them too.

Ok – what the hell, I’m being transparent and off the cuff anyway, so… Although I mentioned them in the past, I’ll shout out to my favorite pair of similar-opposites in this space: PBWorks and MindTouch. Both are wiki-based E2.0 platforms. But I see them on the opposite of some hard-to-define scale. I think MindTouch is probably the most technically sophisticated and capable of the E2.0 crowd – and this is by virtue of its message-bus interface. If the idea of a message-bus means something to you, then check it out, you’ll be impressed. PBWorks focuses on the fine art of simplicity in design. It’s just damn easy to use. However, MindTouch is easy to use too, and PBWorks is quite sophisticated (especially with their integrated VIOP collaboration). So are they really opposites? Don’t know, but I admire them both.

There are some very interesting activities in the E2.0 vendor space in Europe. The one I’m most intrigued with is BlueKiwi. I expect their relevance to the US market to continue to grow.

Now I’m in trouble — slipping down the slippery slope of vendor mentions… So I’ll share that I actively use SocialCast to connect with a social network I’m involved in and I think it’s dead simple to use and incredibly useful too.  It’s a great tool, especially when you already have lots of other collab infrastructure and you just need a versatile enterprise microsharing solution.

OK, I know I still did not cover all the vendors who briefed me in the past year. I did not mention INgage networks (was Neighborhood America), Yakabod, Personall, or ThoughtFarmer – all with great ideas and stories they shared with me. Thank you for keeping me in mind, and I hope that our interactions were valuable to you too.

As for the individual A/R people who were always there for me – let me make the “thank yous” as LinkedIn recommendations – so if we are not already connected on LinkedIn – let’s fix that.

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Tagged as: analysts, Enterprise 2.0, tool, vendor