Are enterprise collaboration tools all the rage?

Social business tools are increasing in popularity, but some question if they're ready for the enterprise

Talk to Dan Schoenbaum, the newly announced CEO of enterprise collaboration company Teambox, and he'll tell you the market for applications that let workers share files using cloud-based tools, collaborate instantaneously and access the software anywhere is ripe to take off.

Need proof? How about Microsoft's $1 billion-plus purchase of Yammer a few months ago? Further proof is in the list of customers Teambox has signed on, from Southwest Airlines to Groupon, Lego, Dannon and Penn State. In the last seven months the company has grown its customer base by 350%, and that's without any Teambox doing any marketing.

Still though, email remains the dominant communications platform in the enterprise and many Teambox clients use the software on a department level, not enterprisewide. Interest is widespread, Schoenbaum says, but deployments of social collaboration tools still seem nascent. "We're in the first inning of this market," says Schoenbaum, who most recently was COO at security firm TripWire before taking over Teambox.

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But, Thompson says, even with the features offered by Teambox, that won't be enough to truly attract enterprises. Further integrations with business process and enterprise applications will be key to driving adoption in the enterprise. "The initial install base will be targeting the Box and Dropbox users, but to move beyond that they're going to have to switch to a more enterprise-grade conversation," she says.

The good news is that there seems to be plenty of potential in the market; the question is which players will make the play to the enterprise.

Network World staff writer Brandon Butler covers cloud computing and social collaboration. He can be reached at BButler@nww.com and found on Twitter at @BButlerNWW.

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