How big? The whole enterprise 2.0 enchilada is projected to be $4.6 billion by 2013...that's big.

Enterprise RSS growing to $563 million in the next five years...Giddy Up!

Here's the net/net from the executive summary:

"Enterprise spending on Web 2.0 technologies will grow strongly over the next five years, reaching $4.6 billion globally by 2013, with social networking, mashups, and RSS capturing the greatest share. In all, the market for enterprise Web 2.0 tools will be defined by commoditization, eroding prices, and subsumption into other enterprise collaboration software over the next five years; it will eventually disappear into the fabric of the enterprise, despite the major impacts the technology will have on how businesses market their products and optimize their workforces."

Here are some things that jumped out at me from the report and recent coverage of the Forrester findings...

From Dion Hinchcliffe: Enterprise 2.0 Industry Matures as Businesses Grapple with its Potential:

"The key hallmark of Web 2.0 is efficiency for end users, and the ultimate goal is to use technology like Ajax, rich Internet applications, blogs, wikis, and social networks to foster productive, advantageous behavior among employees, customers, partners, and other networks such as Social Computing, the Information Workplace, and collective intelligence."

From Larry Dignan at ZDNet: Social Networking Will be Biggest Enterprise 2.0 Priority by 2013

"In addition, I.T. departments currently work with a host of legacy applications. The new tools, in order to compete with these, will have to be able to integrate with existing technology, at least for the time being, in order to be fully effective."

"Across the board, Web 2.0 tools enter a crowded space full of legacy software and processes that are difficult to displace and with which Web 2.0 software must integrate to be fully effective. Integration with lightweight applications like email and Excel, as well as heavier applications like Web content management suites, campaign management software, portal software, and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, must all be addressed over time."

From Sarah Perex at Read Write Web Enterprise 2.0 to Become a $4.6 Billion Industry by 2013

"To make matters worse, I.T. tends to view Web 2.0 tools as being insecure at best, or, at worst, a security threat to the business. They also don't trust what they perceive to be "consumer-grade" technologies, which they don't believe have the power to scale to the size that an enterprise demands."

I'm in full agreement with Dion and Larry's observation. I take issue with Sarah's blanket statement. Our experience is very different. We are working with forward thinking IT professionals who are partnering with business teams to integrate Web 2.0 technologies to enhance existing systems and business processes. Rather than isolated projects, we are working on enterprise-wide deployments designed to deliver communication and collaboration to every member of the workforce. The team approach isn't just a good idea. It's essential to successful implementation. We work with IT to effectively handle scaling, security, LDAP synchronization, provisioning and integration with legacy apps. We're collaborating with the business team to create new communication and collaboration processes and training programs that take the cultural and change management challenges head on.