Gartner on collaboration tools – full Magic Quadrant report

Gartner’s Team Collaboration ans Social Software «Magic Quadrant» report is online, made available free courtesy of SocialText: http://64.45.25.194/clients/socialtext/quadrant/gartner_download.html

The report is useful. It’s plain Gartner can’t find a homogenous set of tools, but at long last it seems to have figured they all are part of a coherent market for a single set of needs. Being cynical, some recent events (such as IBM’s new suite, Microsoft’s renewed effort, or SocialText’s own marketing prowess) may have helped it see the light. Being optimistic, it speaks volumes about the size of the market. The exclusion of some evident players on the grounds that their offer is «portal»-based, or others, is a bit debatable. Oracle’s role if the BEA purchase goes through should be very different too.

Also, the Quadrant itself is evidently very young (first iteration). Criteria and relative positions are all a bit green. But it shows that the field is, itself, green. And one of the few growth areas in corporate software for the next years.

All in all, it’s a useful bit of reflection and a nice listing of names. Gartner has access to data about the corporations behind the product, and about the customer lists, that help see the real dimension of each player. A useful read for those of us that must make reccomendations and choices for third parties… and a good bit of general culture, in itself.

I don’t like to be seen in public reccomending an analysts’s report… but this week looks like it can’t be helped. This one, with the usual caveats, is useful read.