To answer your question, I think old-school big software companies can continue to thrive in a world of lightweight E2.0 tool vendors. But, there is an inevitable culling – as those that are willing to change and innovate pull ahead of those that seek to preserve existing revenues. IBM seems willing to adapt, Microsoft perhaps not.

I was actually thinking about this the other day. Except I had the opposite thought. Is there room for software vendors in E2.0? What I mean is, since E2.0 is so much about cultural change, it makes sense that a management consulting firm step in to coach an organization through said change. E2.0 tools, then, become a tool that helps companies transition toward transparency and emergence (love that word, “emergence”).

Plus, who’s going to hook in all that rich, hard to integrate to legacy data? Shouldn’t knowledge workers get credit for information assets they created five years ago? Certainly. And to make this happen we need enterprise search and SOA. Management Consultants are good at both.

So, my question is, is there is an E2.0 market that can sustain companies that do no more than sell E2.0 software (like Jive) ?

Lets instead consult on transparency and viral adoption methodologies. Lets develop new areas of expertise in the implementation of “light” technologies, and in how to seed them to start the transition into this new world. Business process maps, and other traditional artifacts may not be appropriate in this context, rather a new set of artifacts, and methodologies to implement may be required.

Perhaps instead of artifact makers, we’ll need to become the experts in viral adoption, in transparent management, in explanation of the new collaborative paradigm, and focus on the training and implementation of such systems in other organizations.

Once they can walk on their own, there are likely more engagement on other new areas that we can offer help and assistance, which will grease our grubby little consultant palms without the need to revert to traditional artifacts?

Just a thought.