Enterprise 2.0

Ray Lane takes a shot at an enterprise 2.0 in an interview with Businessweek. Ray Lane is a partner at KPCB and before that he was president and COO at ORACLe. Now he is working with startups like Visible Path ( MySpace for enterprises ) and SpikeSource. Now that is quite a career shift , isn't it. 🙂

Some of the key points from the interview with my thoughts on them –

1. Innovation is a six month cycle instead of a 3 year cycle. This means window of opportunity where you can cash on your idea is now 6 months. Think, Build, Sell your idea in a six months time. Not because if you fail to capitalize on it someone else would do it, but the idea will get obsolete.

2. In the enterprise 2.0 the IT decisions will not be taken by the CTOs or CIOs, but the individuals. Some might be wondering how this will happen. If people will be free to use their own software,imagine the havoc that will be caused. Ray give some examples of the technology which was adopted bottom up – Blackberryl, Good Technology and Skype. Another good example is that a small group wants to collaborate on some project and they use any wiki software that is available out there.

3. The advantage of providing software as a service is huge. Another benefit is that corporations don't have to commit big sums of money for this. A typical enterprise software implementation take couple of years and millions of dollars.

4. Data is a concern though. Executives will nt like confidential enterprise information residing elsewhere. But for a moment, think of a teen who is living on myspace today when he joins workforce tomorrow, is he going to give a damn to such concerns.

5. All software cann't be provided this way.

6. Existing giants cann't adapt to the service model because they just can't.

7. America is not China. So employees will talk about what is going in the company through podcasts, blogs and any other channels available. You can't dooce them :). Companies view this as a grave security concern but see the brighter side of it. It can take customer enagement with the products they love, to a different dimension. I now can know who has designed the Tshirt I am wearing. Voila !

Btw all this is going to be a great boon for the developing countries. If Indian people are going to leapfrog to mobiles, Indian enterprises are going to leapfrog to all these light weight enterprise solutions. :).

Any enterpreneurs out there listening ?