A 2010 Enterprise 2.0 M&A prediction – Hello, Telcos

too many wires and a dusty floorTelcos will start looking at picking up affordable SaaS Enterprise 2.0 suites. Why? As mindshare starts to get split between Email and Microblogging/Activity streams, telcos and CSPs that offer white label business email hosting for the SMB market will see these as a natural extension. In the SMB market, standalone solutions are key to allow for simple, cheap distribution directly as well as via small reseller partners that don’t want service and customization headaches. E2.0 SaaS offerings meet those criteria. In addition they offer ready plug ins into other popular SMB apps such as SalesForce for those that want integration.

That could mean a huge buyer market outside of the traditional enterprise players who seem to prefer build as opposed to buy scenarios (Salesforce Chatter, TIBCO Tibbr, SharePoint 2010, SAP Constellation, etc).

If I’m somewhat correct, expect the likes of British Telecom, Singtel and Comcast etc jump in. If I’m very right and my commoditization assessment from last year holds true, we’ll see more players such as RackSpace and XO communications start to pay attention as well.

Agree? Disagree? Fire away below. I’d love to hear other views and bets on which vendors might be juicy candidates if you agree with my swag.

Written on: 12-29-09 · Written by: Sameer Patel · View Comments

This entry is filed under Enterprise Software, Reviews, Social Software.

  • Seems to be a slight stretch since Telco's typically aren't equipped to complex sell software to the SMB.

    Yet, I can see them selling Wiki's+ or something that is like Google Wave for email. Something that offers powerful functionality but is dead simple to use. Something mobile enabled... Perhaps something like Aardvark for the Enterprise?

    Hmmm... potential business opportunities I suspect.
  • Yeah I was thinking simple as well. Like Microblogging, or Wikis as you suggest. Aardvark is an interesting idea - though I think its not tangible enough to market at a large scale as a SMB provider would want.
  • Agree & my bet is on Comcast as 1st mover.
  • Nice. Lets see how bogged down Comcast gets with NBC - "A 2010 Enterprise 2.0 M&A prediction – Hello, Telcos"
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