IBM still tops in social enterprise space

• Ranked No 1 in market share based on revenue
• Enterprise social software market grew nearly 40% from 2010-2011

RESEARCH firm IDC has named IBM the worldwide market share leader in the enterprise social software space for the third consecutive year, the technology giant said in a statement.

According to IDC's analysis of 2011 revenue of social software vendors, IBM grew faster than its competitors and nearly two times faster than the overall market.

The enterprise social software market grew nearly 40% from 2010-2011 and is expected to reach US$4.5billion by 2016. This represents a 43% growth over the next four years, according to IDC.

The growing popularity of social networking continues to explode, with more organizations looking for ways to adopt ‘social business’ practices to integrate global teams, drive innovation, increase productivity and better reach customers and partners, IBM said.

While this demand is on the rise, organizations are still looking for ways to embrace social capabilities to transform virtually every part of their business operations, from marketing to research innovation and human resources, but lack the tools to gain insight into the enormous stream of information and use it in a meaningful way.

“Social software is gaining in momentum in the enterprise,” says Michael Fauscette, group vice president for IDC’s Software Business Solutions Group.

“Companies are seeing significant gain in productivity and increasing value from successfully deployed social software solutions including supporting ad hoc work by bringing people, data, content, and systems together in real time and making more effective critical business decisions by providing the ‘right information’ in the work context.”

IBM claims that today, more than 35% of Fortune 100 companies have adopted its social software offerings including eight of the top 10 retailers and banks.

IBM’s social networking platform, IBM Connections, allows for instant collaboration with one simple click and the ability to build social communities both inside and outside the organization to increase customer loyalty and speed business results, it claims.

IBM Connections is available both on-premise and in the cloud.
 
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